Kim Hae-won_Raindrop 9
Kim Hye-yeon_Teahouse on Gion Street 55
Kim Hye-jin_Croatia Ghost Story Tour 111
Im Eojin_Viva La Vida 165

Family is the first world we encounter after being born.
The expanding world of mother, father, siblings, and grandparents protects and cares for the child, helping with his or her physical and mental growth.
Therefore, as a fence and a strong support, the family is close to a child's 'survival kit'.
That is why the state and society intervene when a child has difficulty receiving proper care from his or her family.
So, if I were to say that children and adolescents should feel precious and grateful for their families… …then I would immediately be met with a barrage of criticism.
Do you know how stifling and annoying family can be? Family isn't always that great.
That's right too.
Because family has different forms and meanings for each person and each situation.
But the truth is this:
When it comes to family, I don't really think about it until someone asks, and when I do, I usually hesitate.
It is clear that 'family' is a very clichéd and difficult topic.


“Family” is a book that challenges that very difficult topic.
This anthology is a collection of short stories for young adults written by four authors, Kim Hae-won, Kim Hye-yeon, Kim Hye-jin, and Im Eo-jin. Rather than simply presenting a keyword and grouping works with the same theme, it is the result of a long process of discussion and deliberation between the authors and editors about what theme to group together and in what format.
This is a follow-up project to “Are We Family?” published by Children of the Wind in 2010.
If "Are You a Family?" was a book that led the youth of the time to ask and think about what family meant, this "This is a Family" asks the same question again, but encourages them to look back and see how the meaning of family has changed over the past 10 years.


As concerns about family breakdown, the rise of single-person households, declining marriage rates, and low birth rates resonate like a roundel, what does family mean to young people?
If family is a universal component of human life, it is unlikely that it will have changed much in the past ten years.
However, if we look at the details of the work, the family appears to have become more precarious and unstable.
In "Croatia Ghost Story Tour," the mother suffers from depression, so her children are constantly on guard, and in "Raindrop," a trip to Jeju Island unexpectedly becomes the opportunity to reveal the secret of her birth.
In "Viva La Vida," the father reveals his true feelings not when he is alone with his son, but when he is sharing a drink with foreigners he has just met, and the family in "The Tea House on Gion Street" experiences an earthquake.
And in moments of heightened anxiety, stories that would normally be buried beneath the surface surface, and family begins to look different in the eyes of the teenage protagonists.


A journey to discover the unfamiliar faces of family,
A new family story begins where the journey ends.

The four families in the story all have their own problems.
There are remarried families who seem to be doing well on the outside but are unable to overcome their awkwardness and discomfort (〈Raindrops〉), or there are situations where a daughter who was thought to be diligently preparing for college ends up getting into trouble while secretly working part-time (〈Tea Shop on Gion Street〉).
A son is stubbornly insisting on dropping out of the boarding school he entered with difficulty after less than a semester (Croatian Ghost Story Tour), and a father who has lived a sincere and boring life and a son who has lost confidence in the face of his plummeting grades are both feeling lost (Viva La Vida).
Families hide their true feelings from each other and keep secrets, while at the same time looking at other families and feeling frustrated.
Normally, I would have been puzzled for a moment and then quickly forgotten about it.
The reason these long-standing issues stand out in these families is because the families in your works are all traveling.


Traveling is a new experience of exploring and seeing unfamiliar places, but it is also a time and space where the daily routine that always proceeds the same is put on hold for a moment.
For most people, family is a daily occurrence, so family travel can inevitably evoke conflicting emotions.
What happens when you're in an unfamiliar place with people you're already tired of?
If 'family' makes travel more relaxed and stable, 'travel' helps us discover new faces of our family.
Therefore, in “Family,” travel becomes a medium that leads the family to a new perspective.
If I hadn't gone on that trip, would I have ever heard from my mother about her lost dreams or learned that a father in his forties was struggling with the same concerns as his middle school son?
Could I have known the sight of my usually polite brother smiling brightly and joking around, or the story my strong-willed grandmother had kept for a long time?
The family is a little taken aback when they encounter other families' hearts, secrets, and serious attitudes toward life in an unfamiliar travel destination, but soon nods their heads.
Because my family's faces must have had the same expression as mine.
So after the trip, the family returns to their old routine, but they are finally able to start a new relationship.


“Family” uses the theme of family travel to show how family and travel drive the growth of youth.
Do you think families are usually meaningless or even boring to teenagers? Can't traveling with family be fun? These four novels, each with a unique ending, encourage readers to embark on a journey with their families.
And so, when a familiar face suddenly shines in an unfamiliar place, when you openly share stories you normally wouldn't, when you finally feel moved and choked up, only then is a true family trip complete.
Travel and family are ultimately symbols in that they each have their own meaning, but their meaning can only be found after leaving.


Meanwhile, the material that ties this book, composed of separate short stories, together is a travel essay contest hosted by a fictional airline.
At the beginning, there is a travel contest with airline tickets and accommodations, and all the teenagers who appear in the story are tempted by this contest.
Now that you understand that traveling is good, it's only natural that you want to travel again.
It would also be fun to look at the contest results and the titles of the winning works at the end of the work.
As we navigate the pandemic, it remains unclear when international travel will resume.
Therefore, it is a book worth reading as a vicarious travel experience.
Let's all embark on a journey together, carrying with us weighty questions about family.