[A Sip of a Book] "Water, Water"... The Price of Ignoring the Mosquito's Warning

Editor's NoteSome sentences encapsulate the entire content of a book, while others instantly resonate with the reader’s heart, creating a connection with the book. We introduce such meaningful sentences excerpted from books.

This is a collection of children's poems by poet Kang Gi-won, who never stops pondering “the wonders of the world and wondrous expressions” with bold imagination and fantasy. Having worked on poetry and children's poetry for 25 years and having received the Kim Soo-young Literary Award, the poet presents a new poetry collection after four years, containing a profound gaze toward the world. Although some results differed from his intentions, his patient acceptance and expectation of new possibilities, as well as his playful depiction of a battle with an annoying mosquito, bring a warm smile.

Drawing a straight line

My hand shook and it became waves

Waves gave birth to waves

And soon it became the sea

- From "Drawing a Straight Line"

The frog thought. It's all red. I'm not a tomato frog but a Christmas frog. Feeling rewarded for resisting sleep, the tomato frog, no, the Christmas frog, covered itself with a snow blanket and finally fell into a sweet red sleep.

- From "The Tomato Frog's Red Hibernation"

"It will bite, it will bite"

Even though warned, you couldn't avoid it

No complaints if bitten

- From "Mosquito's Warning"

It's truly fantastic

The bed rocked and swayed

Floating around the room like a mink whale

Lying on the mink whale

Humming along to the mackerels' group dance

I think

Tonight, sleeping is impossible again

- From "Hard to Fall Asleep"

Did We Dream of a Fox? | Written by Kang Gi-won | Illustrated by Ryu Eun-ji | Munhakdongne | 116 pages | 12,500 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.