Ride the White Tiger Author:Roger W. Clark, Kim "Lee leaned against the linden tree that shaded him. So long ago he had played here. He closed his eyes feeling tears very close. He looked up the hill. At the top, strung across the road, he could see a red and white banner which the Communists had been quick to put up. The writing said PEACE HAS OME TO SEOUL. He stared at it a long time. — To ... more »the south Lee could hear the incessant bombing of enemy guns. The linked tree shadow crept longer and longer across the dusty street and he looked at again at the ominous gravestone building.........At that moment the front doors opened, and his father, between two new guards, was hurried down the steps. Lee raced across the street standing a little way from the jeep. They passed by him.
'Father,' Lee said softly. His father's eyes touched his for a moment, and that was all. Lee saw the trickle of blood that ran from his father's nose, the angry, red wells on the back of his neck. The soldiers climbed in on either side. The driver shot the jeep into gear and with a jolt it sped away in a cloud of dust.
'Father,' Lee whispered as the jeep disappeared over the top of the hill, under the Communist slogan, Peace Has Come to Seoul.
The street was quiet and darkening. Lee turned and slowly walked back toward his house. And so the Korean War which had begun a few awful days before reached an awful climax for Lee. He was now the head of his household - his mother, his brother, and his soon-to-be brother or sister were his to take care of. For a fourteen-year-old in a war-ravaged land, and under the eyes of the enemy, this would be tough going. But to care for his family was not enough. Lee's country needed aid, too. What could he do ---one boy---in the face of hundreds of thousands of invaders?
This powerful, poignant story of a South Korean boy in a time of tremendous stress takes on added meaning in the fact that Lee was an actual boy who lived this story, and who is also the illustrator.« less