Where's Halmoni?

by Julie Kim

“. . . features two young Korean American siblings who take a trip through a magical portal into a land filled with characters from old Korean fables. . . Kim is making a statement about the loss of culture among children of immigrants while also writing a book that returns some of that to them.”
—Jay Caspian King, The New York Times

Beautifully illustrated and told by debut author Julie Kim, this authentic voices picture book in graphic-novel style follows a young Korean girl and boy whose search for their missing grandmother leads them into a world inspired by Korean folklore, complete with mischievous goblins (dokkebi), a greedy tiger, a clever rabbit, and a wily fox.
 
Two young children pay a visit to Halmoni (grandmother in Korean), only to discover she's not home. As they search for her, noticing animal tracks covering the floor, they discover a window, slightly ajar, new to their grandmother's home.  Their curiosity gets the best of them, and they crawl through and discover an unfamiliar fantastical world, and their adventure begins.  As they continue to search for their grandmother and solve the mystery of the tracks, they go deeper into a world of Korean folklore, meeting a number of characters who speak in Korean along the way, and learn more about their cultural heritage. 
 
This beautifully illustrated graphic picture book is filled with a number of Easter eggs for readers of all ages to discover, and is inspired by the Korean folktales that author and illustrator Julie Kim heard while growing up. Translations to Korean text in the story and more about the folktale-inspired characters are included at the end.

• ISBN10: 1632170779
• ISBN13: 9781632170774
• Publish Date: 3 October 2017
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Sasquatch Books
• Imprint: Little Bigfoot
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 96
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781632170774

Reviews

[nannah]

I lovethe format of this picture book. Having it in a more graphic-novel type format definitely makes it an enjoyable read, and the style is one of the cutest styles I've ever seen for a picture book. I'm definitely taking notes.

Where's Halmoni? is a story in which two children on a search for their missing grandmother leads them through a world of Korean folklore.

I love that the story is vivid, beautiful, and dynamic. Each character has emotions and expressions unique to each of them, and again, that style is to die for! I just wish the characters they run into were more fleshed out. Why does the tiger covet that [spoiler, lmao]? Just because he's greedy? I mean, I know this is a picture book, but it is a lot longer than most, and just a simple sentence here would have worked. Why did everyone want that thing, too? I would've liked to know - and again, just one sentence would've worked. Was there a reason everyone in that world was starving? Maybe that would've been a clue, but it again was never explained (and maybe it's something I'm missing from the folklore itself).

Anyway, a very enjoyable picture book, made better by the book's format and illustration style. I might see if Julie Kim has other accounts or illustrations somewhere where I can follow ...