Korean kid's books: 큰일났다 똥이마려워 by 고정욱

My parents’ first language was not English, and although they raised my brothers and me in English I think that it was through reading that I really gained a rich sense of English vocabulary and nuance.

Now I’m trying give my bilingual kids a rich sense of both English and Korean as they live elsewhere, and for that I rely on introducing them to books in both languages. When it comes to English-language books I retain a special nostalgic fondness for the authors that I grew up with: Ursula LeGuin, Lois Lowry, Gordon Kormon, Roald Dahl, Judy Blume. And when it comes to newer books I have enough of an ear to the ground to pick and choose for my son (until the day when he wants to make his own selections).

But when it comes to Korean books I have trouble. Anyone who has been to the children’s section of any large Korean bookstore lately knows how overwhelming the choices can be. Most of the books didn’t exist when my husband was young, so he has very little to say about what our kids should read. I am still too slow a reader in Korean to be able to sift through dozens of books in a sitting the way I could if I was looking at English-language books.

So I rely, for the most part, on school lists and on recommendations from my son’s friends’ moms. As a departing gift they gave us a stack of short novels comparable to the chapter books read by early elementary school kids in the U.S. My son is already a devotee of comic books(LINK) but I’ve been wanting him to read non-comic books too and this seems like a good opportunity to really start, since most of his comic books have been shipped and won’t arrive for at least a month.

[This is the first in a series of posts I’ll write on books I’m reading with my son (or after my son... since he likes to read on his own as well). I’m imagining this as a kind of Cliff’s Notes for Korean kid’s books. ]

We picked up the first one on the plane. It is called, “큰일났다 똥이마려워" by 고정욱, illustrated with what looks like paper mache dolls by 이철희. My son read the first page and told me it was too hard for him; I think he got stuck because the story takes place in 1970 and the main character, 진우, has been disabled by polio. (The only reason I know the vocabulary of infectious diseases is because of the kids’ vaccinations; I was glad for the effort I made translating their hospital records.) Once I explained that he understood and the rest of the book was pretty easy for both of us to read.

To summarize the story: 진우 is a 3rd grader at his local elementary school. In second grade he only attended school for 4 classes and by being careful about what he ate and drank in the morning he could wait until his mom came to get him to go to the bathroom. (My son is in 2nd grade so the different hours that different grades attend is familiar to me. He gets out at 12:40, which I think is shockingly early, but then again most kids spend the rest of the day in hakwon.) But once he started third grade the problem became trickier since the school day became longer. He was careful not to drink and soup with his rice in the morning and not to drink any water. His mother asked him if he wanted to carry a bottle to pee into during the day but he was too ashamed to take his penis out and pee in front of everyone. Plus his desk partner (짝) is a girl he likes, a rich, pretty girl named 민영.

to be continued...