A partner is precious
Jjajang Ramen is precious
School meals are precious
Tteokbokki is precious
Umbrellas are precious
Summer vacation is precious
Puppies are precious
Grandma is precious
Children are precious

Epilogue
Author's Note

From the strange order in the classroom where boys and girls are separated
Even the strange sights of the world outside the classroom that children are told are not allowed
A new generation of children who respect diversity is emerging.

On the first day of the new semester at Mora Elementary School, Jeong-Hoon wants to ask his homeroom teacher, who insists that boys and girls must be paired up, to allow them to pair up regardless of gender.
Because I want to sit with my friend Yoon Seok-jin.
After thinking about a good way to persuade the teacher, Jeong-Hoon comes up with a brilliant idea... Who will Jeong-Hoon end up partnering with?

In "Smart But Sometimes Don't Know", the children clench their fists and speak out for themselves, asking the store owner for exactly what they want, naturally lending a helping hand to an animal in need, and even slapping an adult who doesn't hesitate to say the strange words "You've become so Korean" to Hari, a Vietnamese-Korean friend who is enjoying kimchi in the cafeteria during lunchtime.
While adults continue to perpetuate discrimination and inequality, the protagonists Jeong-hoon, Seok-jin, Jun-seo, and Hari confront the discomfort and injustice inside and outside of school head-on, signaling the birth of a new generation of children who respect diversity, something that has never been seen before.
“The world that the garden draws is strange.
Different stories are connected like puzzle pieces.
As poet Oh Eun said, “That world is a society where there are no separate names for girls and boys, a society where distinction is found in phrases like, ‘You’ve become all Korean,’ and a society where no-kids zones and grandfathers demanding that playgrounds be built for their grandchildren coexist,” the book “Smart But Sometimes Don’t Know What” depicts the world of ‘children’ who step into a strange world built with solid walls centered around adults and begin to show cracks little by little.
In that world, each of them discovers something precious and Jeong-hoon and his friends throw serious warnings at their parents and teachers with serious faces, so funny and lovable that you might not be able to escape their charm.

“I often think about wanting to be a good adult.”
A world drawn by cartoonist Jeongwon, who embraces small and fragile beings.

The garden cartoonist is an artist who, with his unique writing style, well-structured stories, and uniquely delicate directing, captures scenes from our daily lives that we might easily overlook and turns them into cartoons, embracing small and fragile beings.
As can be seen from the author's statement in the "Author's Note" that "I want to be an adult who waits by your side, an adult who doesn't make easy decisions," this book makes us think about the hearts of children living in the present by looking back on the "me" of that time when everyone in the classroom thought I was an adult.
In other words, it is also an adult's 'sense of responsibility'.
Watching the grandfather protesting alone to build a playground where children can run around freely, or the cream bun shop owner dealing with the no-kids zone (in the episode "Children Are Precious"), one can vividly picture the wonderful future that the "children of then" and the "children of now" will create together, hand in hand.

“Here, there is not ‘kids these days’ or ‘me as a child,’ but ‘childhood life.’
So, both children today and children of the past will enjoy it.” - Kim So-young (author of “The World of Children”)

A kid who is smart but sometimes doesn't know anything, a kid who isn't smart but knows something, a kid who knows how to love all of these friends.
We invite you, readers, to a classroom full of friends who know how to maintain their dignity while being busy playing, and who are full of mistakes but are thoughtful.
There we can face each other.
Even if our eye levels are different, and sometimes we don't know anything.