A heartbreaking love story about a woman who falls in love with a nameless flower.
“Flowers bloom anew every morning.”

The protagonist, who had never liked plants, falls in love at first sight with a white flower blooming in the garden one day.
A woman who pours her heart into observing that nameless flower morning and night.
Waking up early, watering the plants every day and leveling the soil as she had heard somewhere, she was filled with joy as the flowers bloomed before her.

“Is there such a thing as love that ruins something?”

Then one day, not a single new flower bloomed, and the flowers that were in bloom began to wither one by one.
Did I water it too much? Did I miss something? The cold nights of self-reproach and questioning continue…
The joy of caring for flowers is followed by the sadness of seeing them wither away.
Every moment of happiness and suffering as you fully understand a being unfolds in detail.
The meaning of love that blooms only after a long wait, in a moment that goes against expectations.

“The flower was still with the woman.”

Something that doesn't disappear even though you're gone, something that you can't have but is still with you.
As I gaze at the expressions, hands, and gestures of the characters drawn by Monica Barengo, along with David Cali's beautiful story woven with metaphors of love, a certain shape of the heart I know so well fills the pages, and past experiences bloom again like white flowers.
Things that have stayed with me and not disappeared.

If love is still important to us, isn't it in the endless exploration of what it means for one being to truly encounter another, in expanding one inch from my garden to yours?
A beautiful picture book recommended for days when love is needed more than ever.


Monica Barengo's delicate and beautiful paintings

Monica Varengo, selected as Illustrator of the Year 2012 at the Bologna Children's Book Fair, is an artist who presents a warm and soft world of pictures with faded sepia tones, delicate textures of colored pencils, plants and animals that appear in every work, clumsy and dreamy characters, and vintage depictions of objects.
It is nostalgic, reminiscent of an old photograph, yet sophisticated, delicate yet rounded and affectionate, and even in negative emotions, the romanticism and optimism that springs deep within show his uniquely warm perspective on the world.
I want to stay in his beautiful world for a long time.
I have worked on numerous picture books with world-renowned author David Cali, and “The Writer” and “One Day, For No Reason” were introduced in Korea.
I have also been drawing for the feminist cultural magazine Womankind for several years.
Afternoon Sketches is a series featuring the works of Monica Barengo, a new artist who has gained attention following Violeta Lopis.
Following "Days of Clouds" and "The Shape of Love," "The Witch's Knot (Felicita ne avete?)" is scheduled.