“We will fight like a rabbit against a turtle and break all prejudices!”
The delightful conversation between the rabbit and the turtle before the race begins!

The delightful and bold picture book 『The Last Showdown between the Tortoise and the Hare』 by Park Hyeon-min, winner of the Bologna Ragazzi Award and the Grand Prize at the Korea Children's Book Award, has been published.

"The Tortoise and the Hare," one of Aesop's fables, is a story that not only teaches lessons about sincerity and consistency, but also offers multi-faceted enjoyment through various interpretations, variations, and crossovers.
What ingenious experiments will author Park Hyun-min incorporate into this story, which has been retold countless times over the years? What world beyond the story will he take us into?
"The Final Showdown between the Tortoise and the Hare" begins when the hare, sitting on the water's edge, makes eye contact with the tortoise, who has just reached land with difficulty, and immediately proposes a race.

“Hey, let’s have a race!”
“Why don’t you have a running competition?”
“Hey, turtle! Let’s have a race!”
“You and me! Let’s just run, you baldhead!”
Even though I persistently make suggestions, explaining the situation and provoking the turtle's pride, the turtle's answer is always the same: "No."
The tortoise is leading the psychological warfare by teasing the rabbit, saying things like, "You'd rather fight a tiger," "If you want to do that, do it with other rabbits," and "Let's do mixed martial arts instead of running," and the rabbit's demands show no sign of abating...
The way he puts all his strength into his eyes and shouts, “Let’s be serious!” even shows his sincerity in competing with the turtle.

Finally, the tortoise and the hare, the tortoise and the hare, stood at the starting line again! The hare, ears back, intently focused, and the tortoise, clenching his fists with no sign of fatigue despite carrying the shell on his back, what were their thoughts? Who will take the title of winner this time?

“Even a rabbit is not a rabbit.” (Rabbit Association)
"It's so noisy, I can't stand it!" (Everyone)
The bumbling rabbit vs. the transforming turtle, is this really the last showdown?

"The Tortoise and the Hare's Final Showdown" is the second season of the well-known "Tortoise and the Hare" story.
The narrative framework that conveys the race process and results in a one-way manner is boldly dismantled, and the story is driven from beginning to end by a dialogue between the two, focusing on the characters of the rabbit and the turtle and the meaning of the race.
Also worth watching is the skill with which the plot, the two characters' personalities, and the psychological relationship between them are intuitively read using only the shape and movement of the pupils, wrinkles between the eyebrows, close-ups of facial expressions, and the sensual two-color palette.
The tiki-taka between the rabbit, who constantly pressures the rabbit into a race, and the turtle, who gives the rabbit a hard time with his natural answers, provides enough fun to make you forget the result of the match.

In "The Final Showdown between the Tortoise and the Hare," the hare moves straight toward one goal.
He challenges a tiger to a race after hearing a turtle's words and suffers a crushing defeat. He is at a loss in a race with rabbits, and becomes the butt of jokes after winning a race with a snail. However, when he finally hears the turtle say, "Okay, let's run!", he cheers and strengthens his fighting spirit.
A bumbling rabbit who fell into a deep sleep again despite the opportunity he had worked so hard to obtain.

The tortoise calmly trains the hare, then hides inside its shell and suggests mixed martial arts instead of running, then shows off its bulging muscles, and finally, shows off its daring performance of throwing off its shell, subduing the hare even before the race...

"The Tortoise and the Hare's Final Showdown" is a picture book that will keep you laughing throughout the book with its unexpected humor and captivating story that will keep you on the edge of your seat until you turn the last page.


A mixture of playful stories and poignant questions.
A picture book brimming with delightful experiments that push the boundaries of imagination.

Author Park Hyun-min received international attention in 2021 when he won the Ragazzi Award at the Bologna Children's Book Fair for his book "The Enormous Eyes."
By attempting to expand the white margins of the paper into a world of enormous 'snow', the world of nothingness was brought into a winter space filled with snow.
How about "Let's play, kids!"
The paper, as black as clay, took on the concept of time and became night.
In the sight of children playing happily even in the dark, we encounter a picture book that has become a playground beyond imagination.
From "City Flight," which depicts the world seen from the perspective of the smallest being at the lowest point of the city, to the brilliant experiments that Park Hyun-min conducts through picture books, each one is unique.
In "The Final Showdown between the Tortoise and the Hare," the author uses two colors and a vivid, dense coloring method to represent the personalities of the two characters, the hare and the tortoise, and uses free lines to distinguish each situation and position, while allowing the reader to enjoy the story at a fast pace through the dialogue between the two.

It also completely breaks away from the paradigm of the race between the two, the lesson learned, and raises fundamental questions about the subject of the race, its intention, and the meaning of the race.
In a world where we can't be certain of even an inch ahead, what are we thinking, for what purpose, why are we running, who are we racing against, and what value do winning or losing bring?
The story of the confrontation between the tortoise and the hare that we intuit with a chuckle, the prejudices we encounter the moment we close the book, and the cracks in the assumptions we have been taking for granted are as refreshing as the difference in color between the two special colors.

"Life is about direction, not speed! Let's not engage in pointless confrontations!"
- From the text