1960s Korea. A girl stands in the middle of the sunny cabbage patch with her mother. The air is full of butterflies (the souls of little children in afternoon naps) and secrets (though they were not secrets at the time). House of the Winds is a portrait of a family whose lives have been deeply affected by the tumultuous long years of Japanese rule and the Korean War. And it is the story of one mother and one daughter. Young Wife is a magic-wand mother who tells stories of the time when tigers smoked pipes. One day her white summer blouse runs deep red, mango-red and azalea pink. Who knows from where this sudden sadness sprouted? Her youngest daughter is our guide through this world in which an American electric iron is so powerful it sets off a coup d'état. The daughter begins to see "how Korean women, descendents of the she-bear woman and the son of the king of heaven, lived in the folds of history...laughing, wailing, spirit-cajoling, poetry-writing, tear-hiding, bosom-bracing, scheming, fire-breathing." The story of a girl's childhood in Korea, Yun's first novel is a warm and vivid reminiscence of the relationship between a girl and her mother. The Korea of her memories was occupied by the Japanese, whose harsh rule was followed by the devastation of the Korean War. Young Wife, her mother, is a quietly courageous woman who keeps her three children together. Though abandoned by her husband, she manages to provide food, clothing, shelter, and schooling while she nourishes the children's souls with tales of a forgotten, peaceful time in Korea: a time when tigers smoked pipes and history, tradition, and magic blended together to create an exciting, viable culture. Eloquently written in language that is both metaphorical and poetic, this is an excellent addition to the series.AJanis Williams, Shaker Heights P.L., OH Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. This is a novel full of beautiful and vivid description: the shape of fruit, the play of light, the sensuous qualities of water, warmth, touch. The narrator is the youngest child of three in a family in Korea in the 1960s. Central to her story is her mother: strong, sweet, and upright against the forces of poverty and the usually absent father, one who dreams and promises but cannot deliver. Much is made of the life of dreams, of the gossip of neighbors like the cackling Pumpkin Wife, of the moves into ever less desirable housing. What we also participate in here, though, is the life of children longing for sweets, playing in the sun, wondering about the mysteries of their relatives. It is very close in its intensity and its themes to Linda Watanabe McFerrin's Namako (about a Japanese girl and her family) and Gail Tsukiyama's Night of Many Dreams (about a Chinese girl and her family in Hong Kong). GraceAnne A. DeCandido A Korean-American writer's limpid first novel records the progress of its unnamed narrator's girlhood in Seoul in the early 1960s. Her doting mother (long known as ``Young Wife'') is a bewitching repository of fanciful tales festooned with magical-realist drollery: birds cry rather than sing, and butterflies house the souls of children who have died in their sleep. Subtly linked episodes are dominated by such vivid figures as Young Wife's own mother, an ``infamous hypochondriac'' and inexhaustible fount of stories; infrequent visits from ``the stranger who was said to be my father''; an irreverent peddler (the Falstaffian ``Pumpkin Wife''); a house haunted by weeping women ghosts; and the narrator's saddened farewells to her parents and siblings on embarkation to America. A lovely, lyrical coming-of-age tale, graced by judiciously blended notes of humor and melancholy. A superlative debut. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. "Her imagination flowers into startling fresh imagery. Her sentences are pure, simple and exquisitely shaded." -- Cynthia Ozick "Yun's first novel is a warm and vivid reminiscence of the relationship between a girl and her mother... Eloquently written in a language that is both metaphorical and poetic, this is an excellent addition to the series." "This is a novel full of beautiful and vivid descriptions: the shape of fruit, the play of light, the sensuous qualities of water, warmth, and touch." "The Story bends and weaves its colors like a needle creating an embroidery... It is richly written and starkly written, a charming and terrifying read." A book's life, I think, begins long before a single sentence gets to be written. It is a mysterious process. It often begins with an idea or an image that flashes through your mind. And unlike the others, this particular image or idea somehow takes root and sprouts a leaf or two. And it grows into a leafy tree! House of the Winds began like that for me. The particular image from which the book germinated was a very vivid one. It is the image that always came to me whenever I thought of my childhood in Korea. I am not sure but it has to