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Korean Children's Book Wins Int'l Award(Korea Times Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)By Seo Dong-shin A wizard creates a row of magic bottles with colorful secrets. Just as a wizard would do, he hides them among the stacks of `normal' bottles on the marketplace shelves. Soon, confusion breaks out. A boy goes into the bathroom with a bottle of ``Ha-ha liquid soap,'' and ends up brushing the teeth of a hippo. Another boy who opened a bottle of ``O.K. coke'' comes face to face with a crocodile that wants a boxing match, while sneakily tasting the contents of your grandpa's honey bottle risks bringing out a tiger, albeit a gentle one, crouching inside. Or take a look at two, cute, little cat-faced children. One fine day, they bring home a piece of cloud they spotted stuck on a tree bough. With flour and milk, Mom bakes bread out of the cloud. Eating the baked cloud-bread, they all start to float like clouds in the sky. The children, saving some of the cloud-bread, fly through the sky, to deliver their tormented papa from a crowded commuter bus and take him safely to work, on time. The two books carrying these delightful stories are accompanied with brilliant, colorful illustrations that have already received their due recognition on the international stage. ``Magic Bottles'', published by J'aimimage, a Korean publishing company specializing in children's books, won the prestigious Ragazzi (meaning ``children'' in Italian) Award at this year's Bologna Children's Book Fair, which ended its annual four-day run in Bologna, Italy, Thursday. Baek Hee-na, illustrator for ``The Cloud Bread'' from Hansol Education, another Korean children's book publisher, was among seven Korean illustrators whose works were on display at the Illustrators Exhibition of the world's largest children's book fair last year. The book still remains in the top 10 children's book list here. Both books are examples of the growing attention Korean children's books get these days, both at home and abroad. It is an especially heartening trend, considering children's books have a relatively short history here. For in South Korea, recovering from the Korean War (1950-1953) and undergoing the rapid growth-oriented economic development era in 1960s and '70s, it was not until the boom in childhood education in '80s that public interest in children's books was kindled, according to Lee Sang-keum, former professor of early childhood education at Ewha Womans University and an authority on children's literature. Publication of quality Korean books for children started as late as the 1990s, Lee writes in her book ``Children Growing Up With Illustrated Books'' published in 2004. It is no wonder then, that Korean children have been more familiar with the elements of foreign classics such as the story of little black Sambo and tales of Winnie-the-Pooh, or Miffy and friends. Even today, at large-scale city bookstores such as Kyobo, translations of Raymond Briggs or Leo Lionni children's books are easy to encounter. Against such trends, however, there are also a number of local publishers that have been focusing on bringing out quality Korean books with distinctive Korean touch. Chobang Editions, which runs its own book cafe and gallery near the eastern gate of Yonsei University, is a notable example. Unlike ``Magic Bottles'' or ``The Cloud Bread'', books from Chobang carry very Korean elements discernible at first glance. Chobang's, ``Subway Train Is Coming,'' for example, won the 2004 Bologna Ragazzi Award for non-fiction. This year Park Hyun-jung, who illustrated the book ``Korean Bride,'' and Lee Seung-wone, ``Gyeongbokgung; Korean Royal Palace'', are two of four Korean illustrators invited to the Illustrators Exhibition at the Bologna fair. With minute, brightly colored illustrations, each of the two books feature traditionally Korean things _ the royal palace of the Choson Kingdom, a major Seoul tourist attraction, and the ceremonial suits sported by brides at traditional Korean weddings. Despite what could sometimes feel like heavy hyperrealism with the illustrations and absence of a storyline, the two books have already received wide attention from foreign publishers and Korean parents since their publication in 2004, perhaps giving proof to the popular argument here that ``the things most Korean are the most international.'' |