Going to School Alone | Changed Children | What Happened to Me | Sounds Heard from the Left | Purple Note | A Morning with a Cowboy Hat | Memories That Return | Stones Cannot Evolve | Post-it Notes on the Desk | My Mother, Seo Ji-eun | Cicadas That Cry Late | Waves of Sound | Wind and Wind | What I Know | That Morning I'm Rewriting | The Time We Spent Together | Echo Butterfly | New Days | Author's Note | Review

■ Fly like a butterfly, defying the gravity of sorrow
■ “Things you love will always come back in some form or moment.”

Have we ever truly learned how to grieve together? Have we ever been told that it's okay to take our time and stay in our grief for a while? Death is inevitable for all living beings.
As long as you are alive, you cannot avoid being left behind.
So we live our lives asking ourselves how we will deal with the void left by loss, the void left by what was and is no longer there.
"Butterfly Encyclopedia" makes us think about how those who remain will hear, speak, and write about the world again. _Reviews

The winner of the 25th Munhakdongne Children's Literature Award, "Butterfly Encyclopedia" is a work that delicately and warmly depicts the fluttering wings of a child as he goes through a period of loss following the death of his older sister.
The story of a child who has lost a loved one and is carrying on with the sorrow that never completely disappears, is told in appealing and brilliant sentences.

For San-i, who has understood the world by relying on the knowledge information in the science encyclopedia, his older sister's sudden death is an inexplicable reality and a crack that distorts the world.
The memory of their last fight, the feeling of not being able to say goodbye properly, and the violent comments on the article about his sister's accident are deeply engraved in San-i's mind and constantly hurt him.
The way his mother covers her own wounds with her bangs, the way his older sister cannot sleep, and the way he receives special treatment after her death all remind him of his older sister's absence.

However, San-i follows his sister's voice, which he hears with his 'left ear' that he cannot hear without a hearing aid, and encounters traces left behind by his sister, the people connected to his sister, and faces the heart that was hidden deep inside him.
He wonders about his older sister, things he didn't know before, like why she liked oranges, why she cried in the bookstore alley, and why she was awkward with Lee Seo-bin, and builds a new relationship with her in the present.
San-i's world opens up little by little, and words of hope are engraved one by one.
Even though it appears to be dead, the pupa is still growing, and the mountain moss slowly sprouts its wings through its dark shell.
A loved one does not disappear with death.
We who are left behind may be able to live 'together' in another way, while holding onto that memory.
The Butterfly Guide shows us how love survives death and how we can live after death.


For a long time, I think I've thought of death as a complete separation.
But now I know.
That things we love will always come back in some form or moment.
It is also a form of mourning to accomplish what that person was unable to do. _Author's Note

“Do you know, Sister? From heaven?”
That I love you too much.
My time is filled with memories of being with my sister and not being with her.

And that I am very sorry.
My mother knelt down, looked me in the eye, and spoke forcefully.
“The echo knows everything.”
“How?”
Instead of saying things like, "If you really want it, you can," I wish my mom would just tell me the truth so I could understand.
The real story._From the text

■ My sister's time, which had stopped, begins to flow again.
■ The sadness we can overcome because we are together

Next to San-i's footsteps, other small footsteps begin to walk one by one.
Those steps cause the echoes of time that had stopped to flow again.
From Doona, who tells the story of the cowboy hat, from Hanbyeol, who remembers the time she and Meari picked up rocks, from Danbi, who places flowers on Meari's desk, from Eunwoo, who wants to listen to the song Meari was trying to sing together, from Aunt Jeongmin, who has been a 'friend' of San's family, from everyone who remembers and loves her older sister.
So San-i begins to walk through his own time again.
San-i, who was able to be brave because he was with his older sister, and who was able to accomplish many things because they were together, has other people by his side who listen to the sounds of the world together.


"Butterfly Encyclopedia" is a fairy tale that allows us to witness dazzling moments when a weak heart finds strength.
The scene where Doona takes San-i's hand and crosses the crosswalk as if passing the baton from Meari, the scene where the friends promise "We won't watch the accident video," the scene where San-i puts his sister's cowboy hat on his mom, the scene where a kite flies high in the sky with the "wind," the scene where young Meari and San-i send butterflies flying together... ... You will be able to experience the emotion that will make your throat hurt in every scene.


The population of our country is 51,750,650.
As of last year, Sister Meari is still in charge of the number one person.
That number includes me, my mother, and even my father whom I have never met.
What kind of people will I meet among the 51,750,650 people in the future?
Is there anyone else like me?
How many of the 51,750,650 people wear hearing aids?
Who wears a hearing aid and feels heartbroken?
What about an eleven-year-old who wears a hearing aid and has a broken heart?
I don't know that fact.
It is not listed on the internet or in the biographies.
What I do know is that I will grow more in the future.
Your fingernails will grow, your height will grow, and your hair will grow.
Because living organisms have cells that change.
I wonder how I will grow up.
Sister Meari would have been the same._From the text

■ Won the Munhakdongne Children's Literature Award for 'Butterfly Guide' and the Changbi Youth Literature Award for 'Sparkle'
A dazzling emotional experience delivered by author Choi Hyun-jin

Having been writing consistently and reading children's and young adult literature for over ten years, he took a big step forward by winning both the Munhakdongne Children's Literature Award and the Changbi Youth Literature Award in the same year.
Both works are narratives that push away darkness and ultimately bring light to light, and they contain the author's sincere belief that "I and we can recover and achieve the things we dreamed of together."
This is a writer who makes us look forward to what kind of story he will tell us in the future and where his next steps will lead us.

■ Even if there is no echo, an echo is felt, and even if there is no wind, the wind is felt.
Paintings by painter Morutori

The composition and direction that powerfully draw you in the moment the screen unfolds, and the picture that expands beyond the text to the narrative, captures the heart as if watching an animation.
It makes you want to hug the character, feel their emotions, and enter into their situation.
The curious sensation of feeling an echo even when there is no echo, and the wind even when there is no wind.
When I close the last page and return to the first scene, the emotions that have been building up along the story come back like waves, reaching me with a completely different depth.