Do you see all the tall buildings and people in Korean?
A picture book that combines the three elements of 'riddles', 'hidden picture games', and 'Korean language games'!
Reimagine the city with the first step of learning the Korean alphabet!
Discover the inside and outside of the city, captured in the author's experience!

Cities are crowded, busy, noisy, and full of crooked things.
But it's also full of sparkling, bouncy, and exciting things.
It seems like a city where no matter how hard you look, there is nothing that isn't there.
But in this city where everything is available, the author managed to find a new way to play.
The twenty-ninth picture book in the Picture Book Fragrance series, "City ABCs," is a world of ABCs found in a bustling city where people, buildings, and nature live together in harmony.
In this picture book, buildings so tall that it's hard to look up, stadiums crowded with people playing badminton, and people waiting in long lines to catch a bus all magically turn into letters.
A city where you can play 'hidden picture games', 'Korean language games', and 'riddle games', all you have to do is step into this city.
After that, the city will unfold its mystical, hidden-picture magic before you.


Do you see all the tall buildings and people as letters?

The countryside is bright during the day, but dark at night.
So, there is nothing to see except starlight.
What about the city? It's bright during the day and bright at night.
Buildings, streetlights, store signs, and car lights brighten the dark night like day.
The characteristics of such a city were neatly transferred to the cover of 『City ABC』.
The title, 'City ABC', was designed to resemble the lights of buildings, printed on a transparent cover, and placed on the cover.
The cover depicts a city filled with people and buildings.
So, when you pick up the book and take off the cover, it's like spending a night in the city and welcoming the dawning day.
Picture books are not just books to be read or looked at, but books to be enjoyed by touching them with your hands.
So, I intentionally didn't print anything on the back of the cover.
Astute readers will have already noticed that this is another urban playground. If you haven't yet, grab some colorful pencils or markers and start drawing there right now.


Now, shall we open the text?

In 『City ABC』, the story unfolds from the very first chapter.
A person walks.
Our Korean alphabet is written on the sky blue fence.
It looks like it's under construction.
If you walk around the city, you can see construction as often as people.
As we open the next chapter, a bridge with a refreshing stream of water greets us.
On the bridge, you can see people walking, running, resting, dancing, and riding bicycles.
A cruise ship can be seen on the white river below the bridge, and there is also the following text between the pictures.

○When the lights go out
The city is stretching.


But! It's definitely Korean, but the first letter is strange.
Instead of letters, colored circles stood out.
I wonder if this is the only scene like that, so I turn the page.


○ Stretch out your neck.

I want to meet the sun between tall buildings.


The next chapter is the same.
Now you get it, right? So this isn't a book about finding hidden pictures. It's a book where you have to be good at finding hidden letters to fully read it.
But don't worry.
It's not that difficult.
Author Yoon Jeong-mi didn't simply want to teach us about the Korean alphabet, but wanted to help us discover the letters hidden throughout the city.
That way, even the most boring city will be transformed into a place full of hidden treasures.


A picture book that combines the three elements of 'riddles', 'hidden picture games', and 'Korean language games'!

"City ABC" is a picture book that allows you to play three games.
First of all, you can play 'Hidden Picture'.
After reading the text, I feel like I want to quickly fill in the blanks.
So readers are left staring at the picture, wondering where the letters are hidden.
It's so much fun that you'll find yourself turning the pages of the picture book over and over again.
Sometimes, even though you know the correct answer, you may intentionally put the wrong word in the blank space, which will make you laugh.


After completing this hidden picture puzzle, we will now play the blank letter creation game.
When people see and feel something, they feel a surge of desire to express it.
Don't worry if you have to say difficult words like '○ma, ○father, ○na, ○ni'.
○ Because there is not just one correct answer for each position.
Finally, the author has hidden cryptic sentences throughout the book.
Riddles are metaphors that we don't normally use.
You can use these analogies to create riddles.
Let's make a riddle with the first sentence of this book, "When the ○ road lights fall asleep, the city stretches its legs."

What sleeps when the city stretches its legs?

How about this? Isn't it fascinating? Imagine if the author had written the first sentence as something like, "When the streetlights go out, the city lights up."
'What goes out when the city lights up?' Riddles like this aren't very interesting.
When words are alive, they shake our hearts, make our hearts flutter, and make our hearts beat fast.
In 『City ABC』, you can encounter living writing like this from the first scene to the last.


Just like a city full of everything, a picture book filled with small, big, and colorful pictures!

The illustrations that decorate 『City ABC』 capture our hearts just as much as the words that move our hearts.
Everyone who opens this picture book for the first time will be amazed.
Just like the bustling and colorful city, the painting is also bustling.
You could probably count the number of buildings, people, and cars in this picture book all day long.
Moreover, the more you look at the picture, the prettier it becomes.
The softly permeating paint becomes the background of the city, and the rough but warm colored pencils become people and objects, coloring the city in vivid colors.
The author traveled all over the city to draw numerous buildings and people.
The city the author visited had some healthy places, but there were also many sick places.
However, as a writer who likes shiny things, he chose pretty colors to draw even the painful areas.
I thought that if I did that, someday the place that was hurt would be completely healed.
The author drew the last scene of this picture book with that feeling in mind.


The last scene of 『City ABC』 is a view of the city from the sky.
The city unfolds before your eyes as if you were riding high in a hot air balloon.
I think there are probably more people gathered here than in all the scenes combined.
People will gather like this to breathe, run, play, and talk.
Then, if I want to calm my mind, I will go on an outing to the quiet countryside rather than the city.
Perhaps there is a 'Ganada' hidden there that is a little different from the city.
I hope that someday the author's heart will reach there as well.