VOL.77/2024.12

 

#Growth

KPIPA Introduces K-Books for Global Publishing Markets through K-Book Platform

2024.11.04

 

Aro and the Complete World

1. Publication Details

 

Title | Aro and the Complete World
Author | Kim HyeJin
Publisher | Baram Books
Publication Date | 2004-10-20
ISBN | 9788990878113
No. of pages | 528
Dimensions | 148 * 210

 

2. Book Intro

 

New fantasy for upper-level elementary school students!
This adventure story features an ordinary girl, Aro who gets transported inside a book and travels through twelve countries on a quest to find a copy of a book that tells the story of the “Complete World.” The writer’s imagination paints a picture of twelve countries that are each distinctive and fascinating. In addition, the writer gives birth to unique characters whose internal minds are captured in meticulous detail.
Aro is just an ordinary girl, like any other children, but through this adventure of constant challenges, she grows. Aro’s inner psychology as she goes through these rough adventures is brought out in the words and rich symbolism of the writer. The page-turning plot and marvelous events taking place make reading 500 pages an easy task. Aro and the Complete World is rare work, showing the literary achievement of Korean fantasy.
Aro becomes the “Reader” the moment she picks up an old book called “The Story of the Complete World” in the library. The “Reader” is the person who will protect the order and peace of the twelve nations that exist in the Complete World. Not having been read by a Reader for a long time, this world was in despair and all balance had been shattered. But now, finally, the Reader has arrived and just by reading “The Story of the Complete World,” the Reader can restore everything back to normal. But not everyone welcomes the savior from the outside world. Yuhare, the supreme wise man of the Complete World cannot trust the Reader from an incomplete world and he is dissatisfied that the fate of the twelve nations in the hands of “Reader.” So he plans a conspiracy that goes against the order of the World. The day before the Reader decides to read the book, he steals it. When the book that will enable Aro to return to her incomplete world disappears, she must meet and collect copies of the first beings of the twelve nations with the story of the Complete World. Aro sets off on an exciting adventure that she could never have imagined.
Together with Mole, the story-collector, and Misolfa, a kid from the singing country, Aro voyages through various dangers to collect the copies from twelve countries. She travels through the wonderful countries on her journey: as a starry country of magic and knowledge, a floating city, a country of color, a singing country of music, an architectural city with mysterious spaces, a masked country of night and darkness, a mountainous country of animals, and more. In the meantime, Yuhare starts a war that is going to divide the twelve countries. Will Aro, who has suddenly became the “Reader,” be able to restore order to the Complete World and return to the incomplete world in which we live?

 

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Eight Questions for Humanistic Growth

1. Publication Details

 

Title | Eight Questions for Humanistic Growth
Subtitle | A contemplative essay by Kim Jongwon to help people become more creative in their everyday
Author | Kim Jongwon
Publisher | Thoughts of a Tree Publishing Co.
Publication Date | 2020-05-13
ISBN | 9791162181003
No. of pages | 260
Dimensions | 135 * 200

 

2. Book Intro

 

One thing to always remember when aiming to create the best version of the self is the idea that everything is getting better. The passing strong winds, the drenching rain, or the hot summer sun—all of these are great ingredients that play a role in the completion of the self. One must believe that every day is another process for creating the best possible day.
While we strive to become the best versions of ourselves, we endlessly seek the answers to life and directions to follow in our own lives. Is there any way to slip my head out from the yoke of work? Is there no way to live in peace without being influenced by someone or something? Will tomorrow be better than today? Why can’t I seem to get along with this person? Some thoughts take us a step forward, while others take us a step back. Likewise, some thoughts remain as delusions, while others take form and change the world.
The subject of humanities originates from love towards people and the world; it is not just something to be learned, but something to be practiced and extended into life itself. Therefore, we contemplate more deeply and seek more intensely the answers to our questions on our journey. Contemplation in daily life leads to the development of a personal philosophy of life, which becomes the driver of change in each aspect of one’s life. Discussing larger, life-impacting topics such as passion, work, growth, thought, dignity, harmony, and relationships, the author utilizes multiple angles to search for methods through which we may contemplate and work towards richer and more balanced lives.

 

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Here Come the Losers!

1. Publication Details

 

Title | Here Come the Losers!
Author | Yang Ho-moon
Publisher | BIR Publishing Co., Ltd.
Publication Date | 2008-12-05
ISBN | 9788949120843
No. of pages | 356
Dimensions | 133 * 203

 

2. Book Intro

 

This book vividly captures how the so-called ‘losers’, alienated early on due to society focusing on academic achievement, wander about without purpose and realize the meaning of life, death, individuals, and society as they meet various people with different life stories and eventually find themselves.
“It’s really true. The fake is more plausible and just as real!” Jaewoong and other children are caught in the corruption of a vicious company exploiting their labor and are driven to a construction site where high-voltage transmission towers are being built in a mountain village. There’s also a variety of characters in the construction site and the village, each with different personal stories. Trying to save the village at all costs, the steel tower assembly team, who served as airborne troops; Uncle Yeom holding the tears of a hedgehog; the head of the village; and Grandpa Yoo Ciel serve as various prisms through which children can understand life and humans. Jaewoong also has mixed feelings of like and dislike towards people, such as Manager Kim, who treats them well on the surface but eventually reduces the children’s wages. Manager Kim is also at the center of the company’s corruption scandal, and Assistant Manager Yang, who cares for the children while muttering curse words under his breath, and Yukbeopdaesa, an examinee preparing for a state exam, who stands by the side of the residents and children and leads a protest against the company before stepping down later on. Through these diverse forms of people, children ponder what a true human being is or what it means to be a true adult, realizing that what they see is not everything while learning the fact that life is a complex process of disputes and reconciliation, joy and pain, and life and death.
The story in this book is depicted in a construction site of transmission towers in a remote mountain village far from the daily lives of city dwellers—a desolate village where all the young people have left and only the elderly remain. Nevertheless, it doesn’t feel like someone else’s business as the vividness of real experiences is well captured. The author has succeeded in reviving the reality of real-life scenes with strong, outspoken handwriting and vivid portrayals of reality. This can be felt not only in the scenes of sweat and labor, but also in those scenes where violence and strong language is exchanged during protests by the villagers following the water catastrophe, the scene of the cow giving birth to a calf, when Jaewoong is left in agony after failing to confess his unrequited love to Eunhyang, and at the funeral which becomes a venue for cooperation and kinship.

 

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My Beautiful Garden

 

Title | My Beautiful Garden
Author | Sim Yun Kyung
Publisher | Hankyoreh Publishing Company
Publication Date | 2013-11-18
ISBN | 9788984317437
No. of pages | 356
Dimensions | 153 * 224

 

2. Book Intro

 

My Beautiful Garden is a beautiful coming-of-age novel that has won the 7th Hankyoreh Literary Award and sold more than 100,000 copies. Sim Yun Kyung’s first novel features sophisticated writing and provides readers with literary pleasure. The story revolves around the story of a family from 1977 to 1981. The protagonist Donggu who has been illiterate gradually opens his mind to the outside world with the help of his teacher Park. However, his foul-mouthed grandmother and cold-hearted father keep him from learning how to read and write.
“A grandmother who wields absolute power without limitation, a heartless father who uses violence as if it is a privilege given to the breadwinner, a mother who only grows thinner just like rotten tofu, and Donggu, who suffers from stammering dyslexia, is unable to communicate with his family. Unfortunately, his younger sister Youngju, who has served as a bridge between family and Donggu’s teacher, the hope of his life, dies. After the sorrow and pain have swept him away, Donggu begins to step forward carefully with hope in his heart. Readers may be led to enter into the garden of their own mind, have a seat, stare at the scars of their childhood, and feel empathy and consolation thinking that people had no other choices back then”. (School Library Journal)

 

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Regarding My Forties

1. Publication Details

 

Title | Regarding My Forties
Subtitle | All the possible beginnings
Author | Jung Yeo-wool
Publisher | Hankyoreh Publishing Company
Publication Date | 2018-11-24
ISBN | 9791160402070
No. of pages | 268
Dimensions | 136 * 200

 

2. Book Intro

 

Jeong Yeoul subtly tells her story to readers, and in the process, quietly comforts them. By merging literature and psychology, Jeong tells the story of the pain and growth in life through the subject of her “forties” this time. Jeong meticulously records self-realizations, putting them in the category of before and after the age of forty, and writes Regarding My Forties in essay form to help people grow. Just as life becomes more meaningful when we think about death, we start to understand youth and old age when we are faced with our forties. Our thirties give us the wisdom to observe things from a distance rather than represent an anxious-ridden youth. Our forties tell us that we need to seize the present moment and enjoy it, and our fifties urge us not to forget our new strength and courage.

 

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Seven Blind

1. Publication Details

 

Title | Seven Blind
Author | Kim Sun Hee; Na Yoon-a; Moon Bu-il; Park Ha-ryeong; Shin Ji-young; Yang Ho-moon
Publisher | sowonnamu
Publication Date | 2018-04-20
ISBN | 9791186531679
No. of pages | 312
Dimensions | 128 * 188

 

2. Book Intro

 

Now is the time to have an honest conversation about the 7 issues that today’s youth are made to face but society refuses to acknowledge!
Prostitution, gambling addiction, hidden camera crimes are issues that you may think have little to do with young people, but many issues including these are what young adults are faced with. Rather than trying to find out why today’s youth must encounter such problems, society often tries to alienate such kids or brand them as criminals. Seven Blind is a collection of short stories about such ignored issues the youth today deal with. The project hopes to make society shift its focus to the very difficult issues of the youth generation.
1) Grooming: A short story about a predator grooming a victim for sexual assault, it sheds light on the issue of prostitution today’s youth are faced with.
2) Searching for Duo: A story that shows the process of how youths find themselves in the trap of gambling (difficult upbringing, extreme stress, impulsiveness) and talks about the dangers of addiction.
3) Five perhaps, already: This story exposes the indecent sexual notion adults in society hold towards underage youths and deals with hidden camera crimes targeting youths.
4) On tiptoe: The story speaks of the problem of bullying, as it follows Dami who learns how to overcome bullying.
5) I want to know everything about you: The story focuses on the so-called stalking fandom, as it follows a young girl whose life gets lost in the overly obsessive fandom culture.
6) The willow bench: The story helps readers understand youth suicide, and remind youths of the value of life.
7) The Do Gi-tae Coupon: The story illustrates how love and care can sometimes be transformed into violence. It conveys the lesson that verbal abuse is also a form of violence.

 

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Shall We Hold Hands?

1. Publication Details

 

Title | Shall We Hold Hands?
Author | Lee Inho; Yoon Misook
Publisher | Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd.
Publication Date | 2017-11-20
ISBN | 9788932030586
No. of pages | 196
Dimensions | 152 * 212

 

2. Book Intro

 

My secrets were exposed to someone I didn’t know... Then we became friends. The beautiful friendship of teenagers, like magnet that attract each other!
The changes made by four children who have a lot to worry about are depicted in a heartwarming, yet characteristic story that will mesmerize readers through incidents that can happen to anyone. The stable language, lively characters and well-organized structure of this book are astounding and unbelievable, considering it is the writer’s first. The writer’s ability to develop a story that anyone can accept and sympathize without overwhelming readers with exaggerated settings or plots is simply remarkable.
The four colorful and characteristic friendships depicted in the four different stories remove the self-defense of children who build walls around themselves due to the overwhelming pressure of being compared to one another and being forced to compete. Friends who come to children exhausted from their daily lives and relationships are like a gentle rain on dry land. Children will learn how close they were to losing something precious due to “being different” and “prejudices.”

 

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The Eerie Weather and Good People

1. Publication Details

 

Title | The Eerie Weather and Good People
Author | Im Sola
Publisher | Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd.
Publication Date | 2017-03-06
ISBN | 9788932029931
No. of pages | 124
Dimensions | 128 * 205

 

2. Book Intro

 

This is the first collection of poems by Im Sola, who is a poet and novelist. The Eerie Weather and Good People features multiple poems that look into the speaker and the speaker’s thoughts that fail to either adjust to or make compromises with the world stained with irrationality and violence. Her poems show the attempts the speaker makes to see the world objectively and take a step further in order to solve inner conflicts. Those poems reflect the will of the poet who tries to deliver her message with words.
The world is far from beautiful to the speaker. As presented in Beauty, it’s a “beautiful planet” to others, but “hell” to the speaker. In a world filled with fakes and replicas, where there is no giraffe in a giraffe, no Earth in the Earth, and no people in people, the speaker exists by failing to be “replica like person.” By separating inner self from the self within the world, the speaker acknowledges the world that constitutes him/her. In other words, the speaker confirms the gap between the self and the world, and identifies the circumstance through the process of objectification.
How Im Sola acknowledges the world, in the process of understanding and recognizing the conflict between the world and the self, is followed by action.
The speaker, who repeatedly tells stories which can be anticipated as easily as a weather forecast, who repeatedly hears that they are a good person, are like a person trapped inside a window, and now the speaker tries to push the “Eerie Weather and Good People” who are hidden within (inside the speaker) out the window. Looking inside the person people claim to be a good person by opening the window, one finds one who passively repeats the same words, and by pushing out what is not oneself (together with the good people), one can finally become oneself. By not making compromises with the friendly assessments of the world, one becomes oneself.
These aggressive actions resumed by the speaker makes several appearances throughout the collection, and in the end, they all gather into a single story. The speaker stepping forward again from acknowledging the irrationality of the world inspires the will to change the hell-like world continuously with small acts.

 

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The Enchanted Room

1. Publication Details

 

Title | The Enchanted Room
Author | Hwang Sunmi; Ahn Kyoungmi
Publisher | Woongjin ThinkBig Co., Ltd.
Publication Date | 2019-07-29
ISBN | 9788901233390
No. of pages | 164
Dimensions | 168 * 214

 

2. Book Intro

 

Magpie-Singing Morning by writer Hwang Sunmi is born again as The Enchanted Room with a new set of illustrations. Like the writer’s saying that the small hopes she shared with ordinary people became the seed of children’s stories, the 8 stories feature in The Enchanted Room are about neighbors we can expect to encounter in daily life.
Spin, Yo-yo and On the Way to the Top of Mountain tell about the unconscious obsession with what one really wants, and the hierarchy and isolation among friends. The 4th Luck, Granddad, It’s Me, Birthday Tree and The Enchanted Room are stories about a family, such as a father losing a job, a sister who is ill, and adoption. Magpie-singing Morning and Guseula, Guseula! included in The Enchanted Room are stories we can easily sympathize with, feel sorry about and want to root for.

 

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The Shop That Sells Time

1. Publication Details

 

Title | The Shop That Sells Time
Author | Kim Seonyeong
Publisher | Jaeum & Moeum Publishing Co., Ltd.
Publication Date | 2012-04-10
ISBN | 9788954427173
No. of pages | 268
Dimensions | 140 * 205

 

2. Book Intro

 

Time flows, but time gone by doesn’t end there.
Onjo, the protagonist, opens “The Shop That Sells Time” online, under the nickname “Chronos.” Onjo’s father, a great fire fighter, died at a young age; by opening the shop, Onjo wants to follow in her dad’s footsteps and help her clients resolve their problems.
The first client asks Onjo to resolve an incident surrounding a stolen MP3 player. Specifically, the client asks her to put the stolen MP3 player back in its place. The year before, someone’s MP3 player was stolen at Onjo’s school. During an independent study period one evening, the teacher found out who had stolen it, and she told the culprit to come to her office the next day. Filled with dread, the culprit jumped from the school rooftop that night and died. The owner of the MP3 player transferred to another school, and the incident was buried by the school and the families involved. Afraid that someone else might die as a result of a similar incident, Onjo struggles to find a solution to the problem
If you hold on to time, you may come to an extraordinary moment in time.
As the days go by, Onjo is given more and more requests. Some ask her to deliver mail to heaven, wanting to hold onto time; some ask her to be their friend.
As the requests continue to pour in, it’s revealed who it was that almost died because of the lost MP3 player, and an unexpected crisis occurs. And as Onjo wisely seeks answers amid this crisis, she comes to an important realization about time.
There’s no telling where time will take the present moment. What is certain is that time does lead the present moment to someplace different. As Onjo overcomes the crisis and resolves the problem, she learns that if she holds on to that moment in time and doesn’t let go, she can turn a time of despair into a time of hope.

 

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