Synopsis:
Set in Korea in the 1930s (a time of poverty, danger and subjugation under Japanese rule), Waiting for Mummy is a deceptively straightforward story of a young child waiting at a tram stop for his mother. Trams come and go, people alight, yet her devoted son waits stoically and patiently, even as a snowstorm gathers. Will Mummy ever return? The reader must be as patient as the child, as the story is subtly resolved—for those looking closely—in the final magical illustration.
A new edition of a story by one of Korea’s best-loved children’s writers, Waiting for Mummy has been a publishing sensation in Korea since its re-release with Dong Sung Kim’s new illustrations in late 2004.
The book won the major Baeksang Publishing Award (Korea’s equivalent of the Children’s Book Council of Australia or New Zealand Post children’s book awards), and was selected as ‘Book of the Year’ by all three of Korea’s national newspapers. It also won the Korean Publishers Association ‘Book of the Month’ award.
Marrying distinctively Oriental illustration to a moving and universal theme, Waiting for Mummy is a first-rate example of the extraordinary quality of contemporary Korean children’s literature. Its publication in Australia and New Zealand by Wilkins Farago will mark its first publication in English anywhere in the world.
Click here for the pdf information sheet
Click here for the pdf teacher's notes
THE AUTHOR:
Tae Jun Lee was born in Korea in 1904 and, poignantly, was orphaned as a child. He wrote his most famous stories, including
many for children and young adults, during the 1930s. His works are well-loved in Korea for their poetic prose and emotional
sensitivity. After Korea’s liberation in 1945, Lee settled in North Korea and was a war correspondent during the Korean War (1950–1953). Little is known of his activities thereafter, except that he was ‘purged’ by the North Korean Communist Party, probably in 1956. First published in 1938, his celebrated story Waiting for Mummy has received new life almost 50 years after his death.
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THE ILLUSTRATOR:
Contemporary Korean artist Dong Sung Kim’s exquisite illustrations—sometimes historically accurate, other times fantastical—
movingly capture the emotional experience of a child waiting for its parent. Kim was born in 1970 and graduated from Hong-ik University, Seoul, with a major in Oriental Painting. He has illustrated several children’s picture books. Waiting for Mummy
is painted on han-ji (traditional Korean paper), using traditional muck-sun (Chinese ink line) techniques. Dong Sung Kim lives in Seoul with his wife and young son.
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