Introduction of the book provided by the publisher
What is your real wish?
As the child rubs the bottle, a wish-granting genie appears and tells her to make three wishes. My first wish was to help my child study well, but the person who got the first place was none other than the mother. The owner of the wish was my mother. When you ask him to make a lot of money with his second wish, this time his father buys a new car. It was also not the child's real wish.
Genie tells you to tell your true wishes, and advises that you need to know yourself well to know your true wishes. If you think about the flowers you like, the colors, the music, or the things you don't like, you'll get to know yourself. The child said that he had never thought of that and said that he would say his third wish in a year to give him time to get to know him. A year later, the child calls Genie to make his third wish... , Will the child's third wish come true?
You have to know 'me' to know 'what I want' and I am happy when I move toward 'what I want'
Not many adults or children know what they really want. Why? Rather than 'me'-centered thinking about what I want to do or what I like, maybe it's because adults who grew up according to the expectations of their parents or those around them are raising their children in a similar way? The artist freshly shakes this frame of thinking, which was implicitly instilled in the process of growing up, with the subject of 'wish'. And it leads children who have lived by wishing others' wishes as if they were mine to look into themselves. There are many factors to being happy, but happiness comes closer when you achieve or have what you truly want. 『Real My Wish』 is simple and clear, but it contains the truth that is often overlooked.
Three Wishes, a Genie and a Reversal of Humor
The familiar structure of Charles Perrault's 『Three Wishes』, and the character who grants wishes, introduces the most famous genie in the story world to approach him in a friendly way. However, the Genie in 『Real My Wish』 appears not in Aladdin's lamp, but in a traditional Korean goa bottle, and the traditional pattern engraved on the bottle is also a symbol of expressing wishes, which has a new meaning.
Like 『Three Wishes』, which uses all three wishes in vain, this book also doesn't seem to have achieved anything from the child's point of view. However, you will not be able to pass the sight of a child filled with joy, who has easily learned about a hundred or so ‘real my wishes’ that he wants to achieve in the future. The author also presents a fun picture book reading with humor in the scene where Genie and the child differ on their last wish.
Colorful expressions with different textures for each story
The world of artist Lee Seon-mi's paintings shown in picture books changes with each book. Honest description in 『Me and Us』, exaggerated expression suitable for a story that transcends imagination and reality in 『Watermelon Hurray』, and an instantaneous happening in 『One Quiet Sunday』 was quickly shown with graphic hand drawings. With color as the main concept, he published 『Goodbye to the Ghosts』 one after another, which seemed to be engulfed in blue darkness and fear. In this 『Real My Wish』, the artist finds the connection between the gourd and the genie as 'smoke' and selects a line as a way to visualize it. The process of reinventing the 'Genie', which has been embodied in numerous existing books, into her own image must have been an attempt and a task for the author. This is why you should pay attention to Genie's flexible and rhythmic expression centered on lines, based on the ability to freely transform its shape with magic.
Paratext infused with delicacy, the true completion of the book
Elements such as the shape and size of the book, bookbinding, cotton paper, paper, typeface, layout, cotton paper, post-processing, etc. serve to add additional meaning to the text of the picture book and are called paratexts. Taking a closer look at the paratext of 『Really My Wish』 will give you a fresh experience of reading picture books from another angle.
First, if the front page was a colorless bottle, on the back side it turns into a colored bottle, conveying in another layer that this book is a child's journey to find his or her own color. In addition, the moment you hold the cover in your hand, the reader will definitely feel comfortable with the touch, albeit subtle. The reason why the easy-skin coating gives a soft, close-fitting touch is that it deals with the heart, so it is intended to provide more psychological comfort to children. The embossed and press-embossed title lettering emphasizes that knowing one's true wish is the coordinates towards a happy life. In addition, through the manual binding of the silk book method, the two pages of the picture book, the main character of the picture, are opened wide so that you can fully appreciate the picture in the middle.