1.
Where I live
2.
About the sixteen squares
3.
Dream Library
4.
Puppy Drawings and Puppy Readers
5.
Horizontal and vertical
6.
Bingo without shouting bingo
7.
Mother Frog
8.
Yellow hat with eyes
9.
Making a worm grave
10.
Not on grandfather's side, but on the side of justice
11.
Vertical wish
12.
Our World

Author's Note
A book read by both horizontal and vertical

“I will live well in the world we have created.
And someday we will definitely meet again.”

Like a yellow spring flower that blooms after winter,
The warmest love story that has ever arrived

Twelve-year-old Ho, who is hospitalized for a long time due to paraplegia, has a know-how to get through the boring ward life.
Playing bingo on the sixteen square panels on the hospital room ceiling, borrowing books from the hospital library, and reading the ones I liked again and again.
One day, while reading his favorite book, Ho discovers a drawing that appears to have been drawn by a friend of his age. With a pounding heart, he leaves a note next to it.
A few days later, a reply arrives from 'Saerom', who is hospitalized in the same hospital.
The two children started exchanging letters by attaching notes to books, and they started to confide in each other, talk about their secret feelings that they couldn't even tell their family, play bingo, and talk about the books they read, and before they knew it, they were taking walks together on sunny days after the rain.
Now, it's impossible to imagine a hospital without each other, but the story heads towards an unexpected conclusion when the decision is made to discharge Ho-ui suddenly.


Author Jo Woo-ri, who won the grand prize at the 29th Changbi 'Good Children's Book' manuscript contest with 'The World of 4x4', began her writing career in 2019 and has steadily solidified her position in the field of youth fiction by consistently publishing novels with a lively and lively tone, such as 'I Don't Want to Be Twenty Anyway' and 'Oh, Love'.
The author's first published fairy tale, "The World of 4x4," features a long-term hospitalized child as the main character, a topic that has not been frequently discussed in fairy tales, but focuses on depicting the innocent emotions of the two main characters instead of a narrative about disability or illness.
This masterpiece masterfully captures themes that resonate with all generations and showcases the true nature of a full-length fairy tale. Its sparkling insights into life and love will instantly captivate readers.


“Who are you? Which hospital room are you in?”
“It’s a secret which room number it is.
Who are you?

Books, letters, bingo… A world of love and unwavering courage flowing through the two of them.

Ho's monotonous daily routine of going back and forth between the hospital room and the rehabilitation room is filled with excitement and anticipation from the day he is able to read books in the hospital library.
For Ho, books are a precious channel that allows him to actively expand his world, free from physical and spatial limitations.
In the book, the world of Ho, which gradually expands as he “goes to places he cannot see and does things he cannot do” (page 71), expands even further through his fateful encounter with Saerom.
The two children, who recognize each other's secret drawings in books, put their favorite books in a bookshelf that only they know about and exchange letters.
For today's children who are adept at using social media messages to communicate in real time, letters may have become as difficult to access in real life as a mailbox on the street.


For such readers, the process of the two main characters exchanging letters in the work naturally leads them to think about the waiting time that follows between sending and receiving a letter.
Especially if the sender is very curious about the other person, while waiting for a reply, they will use all their senses to guess the other person's situation and anticipate the content of the reply. This effort will inevitably lead to looking into their own mind and facing the real 'self'.
This is why 『The World of 4x4』, which uses letters as a medium to connect two children, is ultimately a beautiful story of growth.


The bingo game is also an important theme that runs through this work.
The two children fold the notes into sixteen squares and play bingo with various themes.
As he fills in the bingo boxes with things like 'books he likes', 'foods he wants to eat', 'places he wants to go after being discharged', and 'the kind of person he wants to be', Ho begins to look at his life, which he had once considered "complete despair", from a different perspective and begins to draw a vague picture of his future.
The passage where Ho breaks the sadness that has been suppressing him and finds the courage to go out into the world and thinks, “Even if I can’t walk, there might be other kinds of hope left” (page 87) reminds us of the affectionate relationship between Ho and Saerom, who fill in each other’s empty spaces like filling in the blanks on a bingo board, and at the same time shows Ho’s growth as he realizes that “living” itself is valuable even in the midst of trials.


“That was good.
Because neither of us is perfect.
“Because we are together like that.”
The power of love, people, and easygoing humor that helps us bear the weight of life.

Ho and Saerom, who had only exchanged letters, become curious about each other's existence and meet in person. They become closer as they spend time together.
Just as readers happily empathize with the hope that “hospital life will be quite manageable” (page 123) if Saerom is there, an unexpected incident unfolds in the latter half of the work.
When contact between the two was cut off, Ho was suddenly discharged from the hospital.
The final chapter, which depicts the period from the time Hoga goes through the discharge process until he leaves the hospital and arrives home, dramatically portrays the pitiful situation the two main characters find themselves in through delicate psychological descriptions and rapid scene transitions.
Will Ho and Saerom ever meet again? As promised with fluttering hearts, will they meet on a rainy day, care for the dead earthworm, and embark on a journey to distant lands when they grow up?

Noh In-gyeong's painting, which warmly captures the final scene of Ho returning home and pasting the notes he shared with Saerom all over the wall, subtly reveals that the story of the two children is not just sad, while conveying one truth about life.
We are not perfect, and that makes us more beautiful. Living is nothing more than filling in each other's shortcomings and moving forward.
The World of 4x4 offers deep comfort by beautifully capturing the fact that what allows us to endure the inevitable sadness we face in life is the people who have gone through the painful times with us and love.


Although the story centers on Ho and Saerom, the distinct personalities of the adults around them who embrace the two children with utmost love also add to the fun of reading the book.
The guardians who stay in the same ward as Ho, the doctors and nurses who work in the children's ward, and the physical therapists all keep their sense of humor and make the young patients laugh even in serious and heavy situations.
Ho's mom, dad, and grandpa, who show off their power of jokes, always maintain a cheerful attitude in front of Ho.
The words and actions of adults who distance themselves from the tragedy that has befallen their lives and instead deal with it humorously reveal a deep love for Ho, leaving a warm feeling as well as a pleasant laughter.
"The World of 4x4," which provides valuable answers to all those who ask about the meaning of life, will remain in the hearts of readers for a long time.


"The World of 4x4" is a story about a long-term hospital stay that is like a deserted island for children.
Every day is the same, boring hospital life, so I wondered what fun it could possibly be, but it was really, really fun.
Moreover, this fun is not something that can be easily translated into video; it truly demonstrates the full potential of literary language.
Although the body is locked in a hospital that is like a prison, it longs for freedom more than anyone else, and that longing leads to creation.
The story of sharing friendships with peers from other wards through books in the hospital library is special and heartbreaking.
The two protagonists, who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances, remind us of the universal vitality and self-reliance of children, something we have long forgotten or rarely seen.

The appeal of the protagonist in a long fairy tale does not lie in his or her ability to save the world with his or her special talents.
Rather, it depends on how he discovers the hidden gems of himself, of others, and of this world in the midst of randomly given ordinariness or misfortune.
All the judges agreed that, for the first time in a long time, they had found a good story and characters in a children's literature work that did not rely on the power of genre.

What children's literature desperately seeks, past and present, is a new image of young people who can rely on the present and the future.
That child will not be a model student who is popular at school, good at studying, or good at sports, but rather a friend like a sunflower who eventually raises his head toward the sunlight even after falling down with a broken back.
They say that children these days have become distant from literature, but their instinct to seek out a friend with a strong inner self, even without a flashy resume, remains strong, so I have no doubt that they will fall in love with the protagonist of this work when they meet him.
This boy, who appeared pushing his own wheelchair, will surely become one of the coolest guys of our time.


In the judges' comments, Jeon Su-gyeong and Jin Hyeong-min (both children's and youth literature writers) and Park Sook-gyeong (children's and youth literature critic)