Korean / Republic of Korea
Seulpeum e ppajin nareul wihae ttok! ttok! ttok!
(Knock! Knock! Knock! For myself lost in sadness)
Cho, Mi Ja
(text/illus.)
Chuncheon: Pinggeo (Fingerbook), 2023. – [42] p.
(Series: Pinggeo geurimchaek; 10)
ISBN 979-11-981565-2-5
Emotion | Sadness | Healing | Picture book
Reading age: 4+
White Ravens issue: 2024
A child with a gloomy expression withdraws into himself, locks himself into a small dark house, the place for his sadness. Despair strikes like thunder, sorrow pours down like a cloudburst, depression freezes the world over, isolation becomes a deep, cold lake blocking access to his heart. The silence is interrupted by a knock on the door of the child’s frozen heart. Trees, clouds, and birds reach out to him, break through his self-imposed isolation, convince him to open the door and let go of his sadness. Author Cho Mi Ja, who has created picture books since 2000 and has dealt with difficult emotions in works such as »Buran« (Anxiety) and »Geokjeong sangja« (Worry box), finds simple yet intense expressions, convincing and easily comprehensible images in clear colours and thick black brushstrokes for the feeling of sadness, which is so difficult to express in words. The story is not about avoiding negative feelings but about embracing them and then letting them go. [YC, MC, SP]