Korean Family

In 1955, an American farming couple saw a film about the thousands of Korean children orphaned by the Korean War. Through a special act of Congress, they were authorized to adopt eight of these children - which marked the advent of international adoption. Since that time, there have been over 170,000 children adopted out of Korea to more than 30 countries. Korean adoptee Glenn Morey and his wife, Julie Morey, spent six years interviewing 100 Korean adoptees from around the world. This stunning Audible Original is comprised of 15 first-person accounts....

When her friends gift her a 23-and-Me test as a gag, high school senior Chloe Kang doesn’t think much of trying it out. She doesn’t believe anything will come of it—she’s an only child, her mother is an orphan, and her father died in Seoul before she was even born, and before her mother moved to Oklahoma. It’s been just Chloe and her mom her whole life. But the DNA test reveals something Chloe never expected— she’s got a whole extended family from her father’s side half a world away in Korea.

When 69-year-old So-nyo is separated from her husband among the crowds of the Seoul subway station, her family begins a desperate search to find her. Yet as long-held secrets and private sorrows begin to reveal themselves, they are forced to wonder: how well did they actually know the woman they called Mother?

1999: At the end of the millennium, the Kim family is struggling to move on after their mother, Sunny, vanished a year ago. Sixty-one-year-old John Kim feels more isolated from his grown children than ever before. One evening, their fragile lives are further upended when John finds the body of an unhoused stranger in the backyard with a letter to Sunny, leaving the family with more questions than ever. 1977: Newly married, Sunny is pregnant and has just moved to Los Angeles from Korea with her hardworking and often-absent husband.

When Lily and her family move in with her sick grandmother, a magical tiger straight out of her halmoni's Korean folktales arrives, prompting Lily to unravel a secret family history. Long, long ago, Halmoni stole something from the tigers. Now they want it back. And when one of the tigers approaches Lily with a deal - return what her grandmother stole in exchange for Halmoni's health - Lily is tempted to agree. But deals with tigers are never what they seem! With the help of her sister and her new friend Ricky, Lily must find her voice...and the courage to face a tiger.

Korean immigrant Mina Pak Johnson is clearing out the last of her husband’s things when she finds a picnic basket in his closet—a long-forgotten wedding present from her mother. With it comes decades of memories—of her mother’s wishes for her to be happy and her own shattered hopes for her first child—and regret at never having used it. Pushing her husband’s ashes and a bottle of wine in a rusty old stroller, Mina is determined to re-create the picnic they never had. But with it comes something Mina never expected, illuminating a loving gesture her husband made years ago.

For the first time, Euna Lee - the young wife, mother, and film editor detained in North Korea - tells a harrowing, but ultimately inspiring, story of survival and faith in one of the most isolated parts of the world. On March 17, 2009, Lee and her Current TV colleague Laura Ling were working on a documentary about the desperate lives of North Koreans fleeing their homeland for a chance at freedom when they were violently apprehended by North Korean soldiers.

In South Korea, a 105-year-old woman receives a letter. Ten days later, she has been thrust into the afterlife, fighting to head off a curse that will otherwise devastate generations to come. Hak Jeonga has always shouldered the burden of upholding the family name. When she sent her daughter-in-law to America to cover up an illegitimate birth, she was simply doing what was needed to preserve the reputations of her loved ones. How could she have known that decades later, this decision would return to haunt her?

Junie Kim just wants to fit in. So she keeps her head down and tries not to draw attention to herself. But when racist graffiti appears at her middle school, Junie must decide between staying silent or speaking out. Then Junie’s history teacher assigns a project and Junie decides to interview her grandparents, learning about their unbelievable experiences as kids during the Korean War. Junie comes to admire her grandma’s fierce determination to overcome impossible odds, and her grandpa’s unwavering compassion during wartime.

Meet Noh Inji: thirty years old, five wedding rings and counting, and she’s never once been in love. When Inji takes a job at Wedding & Life, the popular matchmaking service, she never imagines her role will be with NM, their secretive marriage division that rents out “field spouses” for a fixed period to their elite clientele. Just like a real marriage, Inji’s assignments involve a wedding, some sex, and a spot of housework. It’s all tailored exactly to the client’s desires—no legal battles, no fights, no emotional baggage.

Don and Mindy Wallace have always been Francophiles, so when they had the opportunity to buy a home on a small French island off the coast of Brittany, they jumped—sight unseen—into a crumbling mess that challenged their finances and their family. But when the Wallaces arrived on the island, they found a building in ruin, and it wasn't long before their lives resembled it. Plagued by emergency repairs, a stock market crash, and very exasperated French neighbors, Don and Mindy could have accepted their fate. Instead, they embraced it.

A young biracial girl joyfully celebrates both her Black and Korean cultures the best way she knows how—with the irresistible power of food!

Mina is the perfect daughter. Bound for Harvard, president of the honor society, straight A student, all while she works at her family's dry cleaners and helps care for her hearing-impaired younger sister. On the outside, Mina does everything right. On the inside, Mina knows the truth. Her life is a lie.

Hope is not your typical teenage girl. After a tumultuous childhood, she is once again in a new town and a new school which her mother has dragged her to. As is often the case, she is one of the only Asian kids in an all-white school and is still dealing with family issues. Hope is struggling to adjust to her new environment as a freshman in high school, where she meets a school counselor who helps her wade through the entire school year as well as pushes her to explore her past.

When Joo Hong harvests a beautiful persimmon from her mom’s garden, she can’t wait to give it to her Grandma who is visiting from far away. However, the days leading up to her arrival feel like forever—and the persimmon is looking less and less perfect as time passes by. What can Joo Hong do to make sure it’s perfectly ripe—and not mushy and wrinkly—for Grandma’s visit?

Angelina Lee feels like she doesn’t belong. Newly divorced, and completely unmoored by the sudden and tragic death of her mother, she hopes studying Korean will reconnect her to her roots, but nothing about Seoul feels familiar. Further complicating matters is the resurgence of an alluring man from Angelina’s past, and fellow classmate Keisuke Ono, an irritatingly good looking Japanese American journalist who refuses to leave her alone. What she’ll barely admit, however, is the true reason behind her trip. She’s convinced the key to understanding her mother’s suicide lies in Korea.

Maia wakes up on her birthday to a delicious smell brewing in the kitchen. Her family is making Miyeok guk, one of her favorite foods! Miyeok guk is seaweed soup that new moms eat after giving birth to help replenish nutrients, and many Koreans eat this same soup on their birthdays to honor their mothers, who gave life to them. This year, Maia gets to help prepare Birthday Soup by chopping ingredients, drying the seaweed, and then adding everything to the sizzling pot.

루시와 엠마는 반 친구들과 함께 자전거를 타요. 순식간에 숲에서 길을 잃었어요. 친구 하산과 함께요. 하산은 다른 친구들을 찾으려고 열심히 페달을 밟지만 갈림길을 만나요. 엠마와 루시, 하산은 친구들이 어느 방향으로 갔는지 모르겠어요. 이제 어떻게 해야 할까요? 1971년생 덴마크 작가 리네 키에드 크누드센은 2003년 첫 작품 북쪽 평원의 소녀들 을 선보였으며 2007년 덴마크 출판사 길덴달(Gyldendal)이 주관하는 피피(Pippi) 상을 수상했습니다. 지금은 작가로서 아동과 청소년을 위한 책을 쓰고 글쓰기 기술을 가르치고 있습니다.

엠마는 처음으로 루시네 집에서 밤을 보내요. 온종일 기다려온 순간이에요. 하지만 저녁이 되자 벌써 엄마가 보고 싶어요. 그냥 집에 가야 할까요? 1971년생 덴마크 작가 리네 키에드 크누드센은 2003년 첫 작품 북쪽 평원의 소녀들 을 선보였으며 2007년 덴마크 출판사 길덴달(Gyldendal)이 주관하는 피피(Pippi) 상을 수상했습니다. 지금은 작가로서 아동과 청소년을 위한 책을 쓰고 글쓰기 기술을 가르치고 있습니다.

엠마가 반 친구들을 초대해 생일 파티를 열어요. 정말 멋진 파티가 될 거랍니다. 예쁘게 장식한 파티룸에 반짝이는 조명과 맛있는 음식이 준비되어 있어요. 이제 루시가 생일 파티를 열 차례예요. 루시도 엠마만큼 멋진 생일 파티를 열 수 있을까요? 1971년생 덴마크 작가 리네 키에드 크누드센은 2003년 첫 작품 북쪽 평원의 소녀들 을 선보였으며 2007년 덴마크 출판사 길덴달(Gyldendal)이 주관하는 피피(Pippi) 상을 수상했습니다. 지금은 작가로서 아동과 청소년을 위한 책을 쓰고 글쓰기 기술을 가르치고 있습니다.