The Young Will Remember

The Young Will Remember is about Chinese American journalist Ellie Chang. Chang is on board a military plane to cover a battle in the North during the Korean War. Unfortunately, her plane crashes in enemy country. Chang later is claimed by a Korean woman as being her long lost daughter. This poignant story was published on May 5, 2026. With 454 pages, it qualifies as a selection for the Big Book Summer Challenge.

The publisher's summary:

1950. It’s the coldest winter in decades, and twenty-eight-year-old Chinese American journalist Ellie Chang is on a military flight to cover a battle in the mountains of North Korea when her plane is shot down.

As she emerges from the fallen aircraft onto an icy field surrounded by the enemy, Ellie is sure it’s the end, certain she’ll never make it home to her parents...until a woman pushes her way through the crowd and claims Ellie as the lost daughter that she’s been searching for since the last war ended. Never mind that Ellie doesn’t speak a word of Korean.

Ellie is taken in by her rescuer—a woman who calls herself “Emma”—and the Paks, a pastor’s family. She knows she can’t stay and yet there’s no way she’ll survive on her own.

As the war intensifies, the sky alighting with bombs overhead, Ellie convinces Emma and the Paks to travel south towards an elusive promise of safety, and where Ellie insists they are more likely to find Emma’s real daughter, stuck on the other side of the frontlines. 

Emma's decision to claim Ellie, and Ellie’s choice to take her hand will connect their lives forever.

I LOVED this novel and could not put it down. I learned alot about the Korean war that I didn't know, even though I read about it in school. The Korean War took place between 1950 and 1953. It's known in the U.S. as the Forgotten War as it occurred between the more well known wars WWII and Vietnam. 

The story concerns the women left behind by their husbands and sons who were away from home to fight. We read about their lives in detail through the Pak family and their neighbors. In addition to Emma and Ellie, Pastor Pak's wife Imo and son Jai-Min completed the family. Neighbor Granny Cho plays a big part in the story also. These ladies endured the terror of the American bombs along with the resulting decimation of their land. Their state of mind wobbled between futile thinking and hope. The fact that they could occasionally have hope speaks to the human element. 

War stories tend to bore me but The Young Will Remember is not about the soldiers. Instead, it's about the women left behind. We learn how they were able to handle frequent moves to avoid the enemy and their bombs. With little food available the ladies hid their rations from neighbors.There was no sharing of food as each family just tried to survive. The biting cold of winter weather contributed to the loss of life. Not everyone was able to find shelter as the Pak family did.

This war story shows some gory details of death but it is slight. Whether or not a character viewed the carnage, the survival instinct quickly set in and the women moved on. I found their resolve to be amazing. With Ellie’s career as a journalist the reader learns about the war from the perspectives of the Koreans, Japanese and Americans. Ellie’s discussions over these perspectives gives the reader a better history of the war.

The Young Will Remember is a magnificent, awe-inspiring book that everyone should read. I am rating it 5  out of 5 stars.