★YES24 Book of the Year Selection
★Book Seed's Best Book Selection
★A book of the year selected by Seoul's four autonomous districts
★Recommended by librarians at the National Library for Children and Young Adults

How to share your heart with your neighbors

Why did author Kim Yu use the "village bus" as a medium for his story of sharing feelings and relationships with neighbors?

Buses pass by countless stops every day.
Because many people get on and off, it can be a messy space for building relationships and communicating.
However, author Kim Yu focused on another characteristic of buses, namely the special nature of village buses.


The village bus runs quickly every day, but always on the same route.
It circles around the alleys of the village where large buses cannot run.
So, on the village bus, you often meet people you've probably met in the neighborhood before.
It could be the person who lives next door to me, the person I go to the same hair salon with, or the owner of the restaurant I frequent.
But we can't call them neighbors right now.
They are just people living in a village.
Through “Heart Bus,” author Kim Yu tells us that only when our hearts are connected can we truly be called neighbors.


How about opening your mouth slightly and giving a warm greeting to someone you've often seen, just as the scent of flowers seeps in through the slightly open window of a village bus?
I will make my neighbors and have fun together.
As the boy with the bald head in the story read aloud, 'flowers will bloom in your heart too.'

Neighbors living together with people

In 『Heart Bus』, a family of crescent bears that resemble people appear.
The process of the ‘village bus’ becoming the ‘heart bus’ also started because of this half-moon bear family.
The reason the half-moon bear family took the letter L from the village bus was to study Korean.
But why do the crescent moon bears study Hangul?

When the author creates a story about communication with neighbors, he doesn't just add fantasy elements for fun.
By inviting a family of Asiatic black bears from the forest into the village, we learn that humans aren't the only ones who can be called neighbors.
Dogs, cats, pigeons, sparrows, etc. are common birds that can be found wherever people live.
Many animals live with humans.
The crescent moon bear was put forward to represent them.


What will the crescent moon bears in "Heart Bus" do after learning Korean? They'll probably try to communicate with people.
You will want to know people's stories.
Ultimately, learning Hangul is about making people your neighbors.
Through 『Mind Bus』, readers can think.
How should we treat the Asiatic black bears who seek to become our neighbors? What kind of relationship should we cultivate? Moreover, if we approach them first and make an effort to get to know them, will they become good neighbors for us? Through the Mind Bus, we can consider expanding our concept of neighbor.

A picture that breaks the closed frame of mind

If you watch 『Mind Bus』, you can see that square boxes appear frequently.
Each person is placed inside a square frame with all four sides blocked by lines.
Author Sobok expressed the meaning of 'isolation', which is the lack of communication with neighbors, through people within a frame.
In a space where walls are built on all sides, no one's story can be heard, and even my story cannot leak out.


But at some point on the Mind Bus, the wind blows in through the square windows of the bus and people exchange their hearts like flower petals falling in all directions.
At this time, each individual's square frame disappears and everyone communicates within one scene.
And in the following scene, people are getting off the village bus.
At this time, the sight of the child who got off first running was impressive.
I'm stepping over the line of a large square frame.
Now, people everywhere can feel free to stretch their minds and listen to the voices of their neighbors.