Dear Juno (Picture Puffins) - Softcover

Pak, Soyung

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142300179 ISBN 13: 9780142300176

Publisher: Puffin Books, 2001

Synopsis

Juno's grandmother writes in Korean and Juno writes in drawings, but that doesn't mean they can't exchange letters. From the photo his grandmother sends him, Juno can tell that she has a new cat. From the picture he makes for her, Juno's grandmother can tell that he wants her to come for a visit. So she sends Juno a miniature plane, to let him know she's on the way. This tender tale won the author an Ezra Jack Keats award, and is a perfect introduction to the concept of foreign cultures and far-off lands.

About this title

About the Author

Soyung Pak was born in Seoul, South Korea, but spent her childhood in the suburbs of southern New Jersey. Dear Juno is Soyung's first book, which won her an Ezra Jack Keats Award award. She holds a B.F.A. from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.

A graduate of the School of Visual Arts in New York City, Susan Kathleen Hartung is the acclaimed illustrator of the award-winning Dear Juno.

One Dark Night is Susan’s much anticipated second book with Viking. “I was hooked immediately by this wonderfully told story,” she said. “When I was a kid I used to lie in bed at night and count between the flash and boom to see how close a thunderstorm was. I still do sometimes.” When asked about her inspiration for the illustrations, Susan responded, “Whenever there was a late night storm, I would get up and wander about the house without turning on any lights. I would watch the way the lightening played around the room, or I would just stare out the window and watch it flash in the clouds and make the rain drops shimmer.”

In the fall of 1999, after having lived in Brooklyn, New York, for fourteen years, Susan made the move back to her home state of Michigan, where by chance, she moved to the town of Brooklyn. When not in her studio, Susan can be found renovating her 140-year-old farmhouse, or spending time with family and friends in her nearby hometown of Ann Arbor. Susan lives with her two dogs, Bongo and Audie, and her cat, Gomez.

From Kirkus Reviews

Picture-book debuts for both author and illustrator result in an affectionate glimpse of intergenerational bonds. Juno loves to get letters in the red-and-blue bordered airmail envelopes that come from his grandmother, who lives in Korea, near Seoul. He cannot read Korean, but he opens the letter anyway, and learns what he can from what his grandmother has sent: a photograph of herself and her new cat, and a dried flower from her garden. When his parents read him the letter, he realizes how much he learned from the other things his grandmother mailed to him. He creates some drawings of himself, his parents, house, and dog, and sends them along with a big leaf from his swinging tree. He gets back a package that includes drawing pencils and a small airplane -- the grandmother is coming to visit. The messages that can be conveyed without words, language differences between generations, and family ties across great distances are gently and affectingly handled in this first picture book. The illustrations, done in oil-paint glazes, are beautifully lit; the characters, particularly Grandmother, with her bowl of persimmons, her leafy garden, and her grey bun that looks "like a powdered doughnut," are charming. (Picture book. 3-7) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Puffin Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0142300179
• ISBN 13: 9780142300176
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Hartung Susan Kathleen