Before reading this issue
Park Sook-kyung

Special Feature: The Next Steps in Youth Literature
Kang Su-hwan: The Discovery of a New Youth
Yu Ha-jeong: Reading, Violating, and Imagining the Boundaries of Youth Poetry
Soyou Jeong_The story of making a contact surface
This Pong_A must-read young adult novel
Receiving_Created with the hearts of young people in mind
Song Seom-byeol_Stories that haven't arrived yet

Creation: Poetry
Yang Seol-gi_Growing Tomatoes and 1 More
Yoon Je-rim_Are You Scary? and 1 other piece
Lee Yu-jin_Amatta is always right and 1 more

Creation: Fairy tale
Kwak Yu-jin_My grandfather is bad
Choi Nami_Records about you

Creation: Young Adult Novel
Park Cheong-rim_Jellyfish Complex
This dawn_opening

Reviews
Shim Ji-seop: Inhuman Narratives Revisited Through Planetary Thinking

Children and the World
Children's Books and Book Club 8: Noh Hae-won - Do you want to be a book senior?
Classroom Book Talk 8: Park Sang-wook: Encountering Philosophy in the Breaks of Reading

Special Contribution
Jeong Jin-sae_A Heart that Reaches Children - A Visit to the 2025 Arko Literature Week

This is the comic 'What Was I Like?'
Children and Climate

Book review
Kim Yu-jin and Kim Seung-il's "I'm Good at Crying"
Jo Seong-sun and Jo Eun-ju's "Biro and the Tiger Grandpa"
Kim Jae-bok and Lee Geum-i's "The Gap of Sorrow"
Shin Soo-jin and Kim Young-hwa's "The Story of the Field Covered with Buk"

Winners of the 17th Changbi Children's Literature Award Announced
Simultaneously / Choi Seol-hee_A Line of Praise and 9 Other Pieces
Dongwha / Nam Ji-min_Never wave your hand in the reed field
Young Adult Novel / Chae Hyeong-wook_The Temperature of a Grain of Sand
Review / Kim Ji-young_The Narrative of Conspiracy: Surviving in an Infected World
Judges' comments and award acceptance speeches

The 19th Changbi Youth Literature Award Winners Announced
Winner_Yoo Ji-hyun

[Special Feature] The Next Step in Youth Literature

Although youth literature started out as a latecomer to children's literature, it has established its own unique domain and formed its own identity.
The winter special feature, "The Next Steps for Youth Literature," examines the achievements of youth literature to date and charts the direction for the future.
Kang Su-hwan, a critic of children's and youth literature, argues that in order to broaden the spectrum of youth literature, we must move beyond the existing educational and didactic perspective and explore a new era of "youth" centered on youth culture.
Furthermore, he says that youth literature should go beyond simply representing reality and lead young people to discover an unknown 'self' that they themselves are unaware of.
Poet Yoo Ha-jeong points out the phenomenon in which creators aim for "easy-to-read poetry," while young readers prefer general poetry, and emphasizes the need for efforts to get closer to the complex emotions and identities of young people rather than simplifying poetic language.
Literary critic So Yoo-jeong analyzes Baek On-yu's work, which crosses the boundaries between youth novels and general novels, and takes a fresh look at the meaning of "growth."
He evaluates that Baek On-yu shows another direction of youth literature in that he depicts growth not as the perfection of an individual, but as a process of acknowledging each other's imperfections in a relationship.
Children's author Lee Pong introduces young adult novels by writers who deserve attention today, including Kim Kyung-eun, Yun Seol-bit, Gil Sang-hyo, and Lee Ji-ah, and hopes that their sensuous and experimental attempts will reach more readers and inject vitality into young adult literature.
Cartoonist Su Shin-ji shares her creative experience with the series "Responsibilities and Obligations as a Class President," shares her concerns when dealing with youth characters and narratives, and suggests cartoons she would like to recommend to youth.
Translator Song Seom-byeol covers English-language adult works that have not been introduced in Korea, and hopes that narratives that address contemporary themes such as the climate crisis, racism, and identity will be actively accepted in the domestic youth literature market.
Through this special feature, we hope to discover the diverse aspects of "youth" and broadly imagine the future of youth literature.

[Review] Inhuman Narratives Revisited Through Planetary Thinking
[Book Review] Jo Seong-sun's "Rain and Tiger Grandpa" / Kim Yeong-hwa's "The Story of the Buk-bok Field"

This issue contains several articles that move beyond "Earth-centric thinking" and embrace a "planetary thinking" perspective that views humans, nature, and non-human beings as a single ecological network.
Shim Ji-seop's critique, while wary of anthropocentric anthropomorphism, analyzes the imagination displayed by the connected physical senses and unconscious cognition of humans and non-humans in Bae Mi-ju's novel "Sinker," and the process by which a robot constructs its own independent linguistic world in Kim I-hwan's short story "Where Did the Cloud Go?"
He points out that recent children's and young adult literature has expanded its narratives through personification, integrating the experiences of diverse beings.
The book reviews of 『Biro and the Tiger Grandpa』, a fairy tale depicting the bond between a tiger grandfather and his human grandson, and 『The Story of the Buk-bak-chin Field』, a picture book that depicts the forest in the forest of Lee Deok-gu’s mountain village at the Jeju April 3 Incident site, guide readers to read the world where humans and non-humans are intertwined from a broader perspective.

[Children and the World] Children's Books and Book Club 8: Do you want to be a book senior?
[Children and the World] Classroom Book Stories 8: Encountering Philosophy in the Breaks of Reading
[Announcement] Announcement of the 17th Changbi Children's Literature Award and the 19th Changbi Youth Literature Award

'Children's Books and Book Club' introduces the 'Book Seniors' group at Hongdong Elementary School in South Chungcheong Province.
It vividly depicts upper elementary school students selecting books to read to lower grades and preparing by thinking about reading methods.
'Book Stories in the Classroom' is a philosophy class at an alternative school where students read Lee Hee-young's novel 'Paint' and reexamine the meaning of family. It shows that the experience of questioning and discussing the meaning of family is an important force that leads to change and growth in young people.
In addition, the winners of the 17th Changbi Children's Literature Award (Choi Seol-hee, Nam Ji-min, Chae Hyeong-uk, Kim Ji-young) and the 19th Changbi Youth Literature Award (Yoo Ji-hyun) were included, along with the judges' comments and acceptance speeches.
The works of new writers, each depicting children and adolescents overcoming wounds and hardships in their own unique ways, and the judges' comments, which provide a perspective on the current state of children's and adolescent literature, will allow us to more clearly assess the trends of children's and adolescent literature in 2026.