Hyewon Yum's Blog, page 15

쌍둥이가 너무 좋아 (sisalive)

빙긋이 웃음 자아내는 쌍둥이의 이불 소동
어딘가에 나와 똑같은 이가 있을 거야. 어린 시절 그런 공상을 하며 쌍둥이가 아님을 아쉬워했다. 그래서 더 반가웠다. 그림책 <쌍둥이는 너무 좋아>는 이불 때문에 갈등하는 쌍둥이 이야기를 담고 있다.

2014년 03월 15일 (토) 12:28:10 [339호]
김상욱 (춘천교대 국어교육과 교수)
http://m.sisainlive.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=19628

어린 시절 대척점이란 말을 처음 배웠을 때다. 내가 서 있는 지구 정반대편의 한 지점을 가리키는 말이라고 했다. 아르헨티나였던가 우루과이였던가? 나는 이름도 생소한 그곳 어디쯤에는 분명 나와 다를 바 없는 누군가가 살고 있으리라 생각했다. 이렇게 큰 지구에 사는, 몇십 억이나 되는 사람들 가운데 어찌 나와 똑같은 이가 없을 수 있으랴. 그런 아이가 있다면 분명 대척점쯤에 살고 있으리라 생각했다. 그때의 나처럼 땟국물로 얼룩진 얼굴을 하고, 똑같이 엄마에게 때때로 꾸지람을 듣고, 똑같이 쓸모없는 공상으로 나날을 보내는 아이가 분명 있으리라 생각했다. 언젠가는 만나서, 한눈에 서로를 알아보고 지나온 일들을 얘기하고 싶었다.

그런데 이 공상을 현실 속에서 경험하는 이들이 있음을 알게도 되었다. 바로 쌍둥이들이다. 함께 엄마 뱃속에서 자라고, 비슷한 외모와 성격으로, 오래 가까이 지켜본 이들만 그 차이를 구별할 수 있는 쌍둥이 말이다. 지구 대척점이 아닌, 지금도 바로 내 곁에서 아웅거리고 헤헤거리는 쌍둥이야말로 정말 나와 똑같은 이가 아닌가. 나는 쌍둥이가 아님을 오래도록 아쉬워했다.



<쌍둥이는 너무 좋아> 염혜원 글·그림, 비룡소 펴냄
염혜원이 쓰고 그린 <쌍둥이는 너무 좋아>는 이런 이야기를 담고 있다. 작가 자신이 실제 쌍둥이였다니 어린 시절 얼마나 아기자기하고 알콩달콩한 일들이 많았을까. 책 속에 담겨 있는 이야기들은 얼마나 생생할까. 그런데 같은 방, 같은 장난감, 같은 이불 등 모든 것을 똑같이 나누는 이 쌍둥이에게도 갈등은 생겨난다. 성큼 자라 같은 이불을 더 이상 덮을 수 없게 된 것이다. 서로 양보할 수 없어 아옹다옹 다투기에 이르는 이 쌍둥이들은 작아진 이불을 어떻게 나누어야 할까? 결국 새 이불을 따로 만드는 수밖에. 이제 쌍둥이들은 노란색, 분홍색의 다른 이불을 갖게 된다. 물론 원래 덮었던 색동이불도 서로의 새로운 이불 한 귀퉁이를 저마다 차지하며.

실제 쌍둥이인 작가, 두 명의 화자 등장시켜

그림은 배경을 전적으로 배제하고, 인물과 인물에 직결된 대상들만을 화폭에 담아냄으로써 인물의 표정과 동작에 집중하도록 만든다. 인물의 차이는 서로 다른 색감과 서로 다른 헝겊 인형으로 구분 지었다. 섬세한 외곽선으로 인물을 표현하며, 붓질이 남아 있는 색조가 부드러운 채색을 통해 반복과 변주를 거듭 짝을 이뤄 제시하고 있다. 더욱이 이 그림책의 이야기꾼, 곧 서술자는 아주 예외적으로 둘이다. 그리고 둘 다 스스로를 ‘나’라고 지칭한다. “난 팔을 뻗어 동생 손을 잡았어”와 “나도 언니 손을 꼭 잡았어”처럼 두 화자가 펼침면을 두고 각자 ‘나’로 스스로를 지칭하며 생각과 느낌을 이야기한다. 그럼에도 전혀 모순되지 않고 주고받는 화음처럼 어울려 긴 펼침면 전체를 중층적으로 연결하고 있다. 시간을 공간적으로, 공간을 시간적으로 변주해 보임으로써 글과 글, 그림과 그림의 대위법이 정교하게 제시되어 있는 것이다.

내가 여자가 아니고 내가 쌍둥이가 아님은 자명하다. 그러니 나는 여자를 알 수 없고, 쌍둥이도 알 수 없다. 그러나 같고 다름은 어쩌면 결국에는 상대적인 것이 아닐까. 더 큰 시야로 보면 우리 모두가 다 쌍둥이이며, 더 정밀한 눈으로 보면 우리 모두가 서로 다른 존재가 아닐까. 같은 듯 다르고 다른 듯 같은. 이 차이 속의 동질성을, 동질성 속의 차이를 보여주고, 볼 수 있게 만드는 그림책들은 일단 좋은 작품이 되기 위한 필요조건을 갖춘 것은 아닐까.

Twin book in Korean

Translated

Excited to see my book in Chinese!

Happy Holidays!

Brooklyn Museum Children's Book Fair

I'll be at the Brooklyn Museum Book Fair this year.

Horn book review

JULY/AUGUST ISSUE:

  

by Hyewon Yum; illus. by the author

Preschool, Primary    Foster/Farrar    40 pp.

8/13    978-0-374-37487-7    $16.99    g

A young girl describes her home in terms of her family’s history, starting with, “This is the house where my grandparents arrived from far away with just two suitcases in hand.” The girl associates tangible aspects of the house and neighborhood (a tree, the street, the stairs) with meaningful kid-milestones and memories such as her mother learning to walk on the sidewalk outside the building. Time passes; Mom leaves for college, then returns “with the boyfriend who would be my father.” The young couple moves in, and new memories and milestones are celebrated, but some things remain constant (“This is the street where I learned to walk, just like my mom”). Yum’s rosy-cheeked, smiling characters and bright, expressive mixed-media illustrations (line and watercolor wash with homey smudges of crayon or pastel), some of which are set up in picture frames to reinforce the family-history theme, offer visual warmth to complement the comfortingly circular narrative arc. This is an immigrant tale, a celebration of family, a loving ode to place, and a study of the passage of time, all wrapped in a simply phrased narrative perfect for parental sharing and child commentary. claire e. gross

Booklist review

This Is Our House.

Yum, Hyewon (Author) , Yum, Hyewon (Illustrator)

Aug 2013. 40 p. Farrar/Frances Foster, hardcover, $16.99. (9780374374877).

Yum’s latest resembles a photo album and follows a little girl offering up a historical tour of the house she

shares with her parents, grandparents, and cat. She starts at the beginning, when her mother’s parents

“arrived from far away with just two suitcases in hand.” On one side of the spread (here and throughout

the book) is a watercolor framed like a photograph; the other side reveals a more complete view from the

same time period. The story continues, inside and in front of the two-story attached home, through her

mother’s childhood, departure for college, and return with “the boyfriend who would be my father.” Yum

depicts the girl’s grandparents as warm and welcoming, even as nervous new parents, and the girl’s

parents convey the same loving concern for their child. Some of the “framed” images pop up again on

walls in later pages, suggesting how the young narrator learned the history she’s relaying. Even before the

baby sibling is introduced on the last spread, this is a sweet tribute to continuity and togetherness.

— Abby Nolan

Review from NYT

Home is also at the heart of two new picture books, “This Is Our House,” written and illustrated by Hyewon Yum, and “Once Upon a Northern Night,” written by Jean E. Pendziwol and illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault (whose artwork for Trottier’s “Migrant” earned a New York Times Best Illustrated award). Yum, originally from South Korea but now living in Brooklyn, sets her story in a city that could very well be New York, among a family of recent immigrants whose country of origin is never specified; Pendziwol and Arsenault, both Canadian, describe a cozy home in a wintry rural landscape.On the title page of “This Is Our House,” a watercolor illustration shows a photograph of a little girl peeking her head around a front door, as if to welcome the reader inside. On the next, a framed black and white photograph — again painted in watercolor — shows the house as it looked when her grandparents “arrived from far away with just two suitcases in hand.” In a pattern Yum continues throughout the book, the photo of the house is faced by a full-page scene. Here, the girl’s grandparents talk to each other as they stand outside their new home for the first time. The grandmother looks as if she is either shyly pleased, or hesitant. What is certain is her husband’s encouraging smile.The photos reveal the public story, Yum seems to suggest, but there’s more to be told. And sure enough, the full-page scenes are intimate rather than posed: moments of action, and sometimes of crossness and tears; a little quarrel over the painting of the baby’s room on one side of the spread, a photo of the delighted expectant mother posing in a fully decorated room on the other. Mostly, the three generations who come to live in the house together display smiles and kind concern for one another.Yum uses a springlike palette of yellow, pinks and greens, even when there’s snow on the sidewalk, and the little girl’s dark braids perfectly set off the fresh, happy colors. With time, the once-bare facade of the house comes to life with window boxes, flowering hedges and potted plants of the front stoop. The seasons cycle though the pictures as the family grows, including, at the end, a baby brother for the little narrator. She gives a slight twist to the book’s title in her final summary: “This is our home where my family lives.”http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/books/this-is-our-house-and-once-upon-a-northern-night.html?_r=0






 

Review from WSJ

Wall Street Journal

July 27, 2013

 

Hyewon Yum depicts actual picture frames on the gentle pages of "This Is Our House" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 40 pages, $16.99), but with its sherbet colors and comforting domesticity, this picture book for small children stands in almost comical contrast to tales of swashbuckling. Here we are in total safety, in the brick row house where a little girl lives with her family. "This is the house where my grandparents arrived from far away," the child explains, as we see a framed drawing of the house in winter. Soon an infant arrives—a girl who will grow up to be the narrator's mother—as a lovely tree blossoms on the street outside.

As befits a book for the very young, this quiet chronicle moves in a circular way, like a literary hug. As the child explains the history of the house, from the kitchen ("where her mother made my mom's favorite soup") to the front steps ("where we sit in the sun on autumn days"), we see time passing, until a fresh cycle is complete and a newborn arrives to turn the young narrator into a big sister.

SLJ's review for This is Our House

School Library Journal
July 2013
 
YUM, Hyewon. This Is Our House. illus. by author. 40p. Farrar/Frances Foster. Aug. 2013. RTE $16.99. ISBN 978-0-374-37487-7.
PreS-Gr 2–A girl describes her family history as it relates to her home: “This is the house where my grandparents arrived from far away….These are the front steps where my mom and her brothers played on warm summer days….This is the street where I learned to walk, just like my mom.” The snapshot quality of each statement is emphasized in the illustrations: each spread includes an informal slice-of-life scene as well as a framed picture of the relatives during that time. The cheerful pictures show a loving family enjoying life together, while seasonal changes and aging characters help show the passage of time. This is a story about nothing and about everything. There is no real plot or narrative, but it encompasses the lives of three generations. The intergenerational household may not be familiar to many modern American kids, but the idea of close family ties and treasured memories and places is universal. This quiet book could be an effective conversation starter about personal history at home or in the classroom.–Heidi Estrin, Congregation B’nai Israel, Boca Raton, FL