Dog Poop – Dandelion Picture Book 1

Dog poop under the alley wall. Everyone said, “Oh my, it’s dirty.” By doing so, you only end up harming yourself. Sometimes, if it's dirty dog ​​poop, they make fun of it and scold it. Puppy Poop sheds tears thinking that he is dirty and unnecessary.
One rainy spring day, Dog Poop listens to the story of the dandelion bud and realizes that he is essential to the dandelion. So the dog poop happily seeps into the dandelion roots and blooms into a beautiful flower. Dog poop, which seemed useless to the world, has turned into something precious to someone.
Kwon Jeong-saeng's writing and Jeong Seung-gak's beautiful illustrations add to the emotion of the original work. This book tells the story of how a mere little thing called dog poop, which is considered useless, becomes valuable fertilizer for dandelion flowers to bloom, creating a life and nature story. It teaches you the value of. This principle applies to people as well. Even though you think you are a useless person in this world, when you experience discovering the value of your own existence, you begin to love yourself and feel the preciousness of life.
Our children will also be able to learn to love nature and cherish people through the story of “Dog Poop.” Media Review
“There is nothing useless.”
There is a proverb that says, “Not even dog poop can be used in medicine.” This means that no matter how insignificant something is, it definitely has a use. The same goes for “Dog Poop,” which continues to receive love as a children’s book. Although it is a short story, the content containing warm affection for the underprivileged gives a warm impression to both children and adults alike.
Dog poop left on the side of the road where the dog did its business. She is mistreated by sparrows and chicks, saying she 'smells', and is shunned by her farmer, causing her to worry about her own self-worth.
However, a dandelion warmly surrounds the despairing puppy poop. Dandelions bloom in dog poop, and she realizes that she is essential (nutrients).
In particular, Jeong Seung-gak's warm, colorful illustrations along with the warm writing enhanced the completeness of this book.
《Dog Poop》 is actually a work for which children's story writer Kwon Jeong-saeng received the 'Christian Children's Literature Award' in 1969. Afterwards, it was published in several fairy tale collections, but did not receive much response. Meanwhile, Mr. Jeong, who happened to witness a teacher reading “Puppy Poop” to children as a fairy tale, recommended its reprint and it was published as a book. This book, which Jeong-saeng Kwon shortened the original to fit a child's level, was also forgotten for a long time and finally came to light.
================ Dong-A Ilbo, The Fragrance of Books Reporter Hwang Tae-hoon, May 2002, 5. Hypothesis one. 'A person's face resembles the work he does.' At least this hypothesis fits Jeong Seung-gak (4) perfectly. His face is almost round, and his eyes are bright. It is not easy to guess his age until you look closely and see the wrinkles around his eyes. What does he do? He is none other than a 'fairy tale illustrator.'
Hypothesis two. 'A person's face resembles his or her heart.' Let’s see Mr. Jeong again. An adult who scratches a washboard with children and knows how to draw the sound on drawing paper. An adult who looks into dog poop and thinks of the appearance of a child inside it. His ‘childlikeness’ is finally completed in his heart. “To me, children just look chunky and dark. “I can’t picture children with rosy cheeks, as if they just got out of the bathhouse.” So, even if it is the same fairy tale, his drawings are very different from those of other adults.
His character was probably something he was born with. Otherwise, wouldn't it have been possible for children to retain their childlikeness as they grow older in this country's educational environment where they are raised to think like adults and act like adults from the moment they enter kindergarten? But he doesn't blame it on nature.
“I was the most typical off-the-shelf product. It was like I didn't really have a chance to feel like a child. “The children gave me back my lost eyesight.” Since 85, Mr. Jeong has been a member of the National Art Council (Minmihyeop) and has participated in the mural movement by traveling to demolished villages and slums. At that time, he believed that the picture he painted was the heart of the people.
Then, in the summer of 87, I went to the village of Haan-dong, Gwangmyeong-si, Gyeonggi-do, which suffered a flood, to work on murals and met children. When we asked the children there to draw pictures of the flood, they freely expressed their experiences on the drawing paper. This was possible because the children had experienced floods every year.
“It was shocking. And I was embarrassed.” While people who are famous for their art were struggling in their heads wondering how to draw, children were expressing their experiences in a surprisingly realistic way.
From then on, I started learning how to draw. His children were his drawing teachers. And for the past 10 years, he has been working with hundreds of children to paint neighborhood fences and school building walls. No, the children moved images exactly like themselves onto the wall, and all Mr. Jeong did was ask the children to draw whatever they wanted.
It was then that Mr. Jeong became interested in illustrations in children's books. The quality of our country’s children’s books was pathetic. In most cases, foreign books were imported and only the text was changed to Korean, and the illustrations in our children's books were only blindfolded. So, in 88, I started drawing fairy tales myself. He didn't start out with a publishing deal. I jumped in, thinking I was just paying tuition for the kids.
However, it was an arduous task that required creating everything from scratch. Above all, no one had gone down this path before. He tried several experiments. He tried drawing with woodblock prints, knitted clay dolls one by one and drew rough sketches, and even introduced the painting technique. I spent a year drawing a book while others would draw it in 1 days.
However, these pictures all set a new milestone for Korean children's book publishers. Books like “In the Country Where My Mother Lives,” “Naughty Goblin,” “Sapsari from the Land of Darkness,” and “Dog Poop” are all like that.
Mr. Jeong's family moved from Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do to a mountain valley in Eomjeong-myeon, Chungju-si, Chungcheongbuk-do last year. Although Mr. Jeong's income was not enough to maintain city life, the spacious studio in the country house that was renovated from the church, the vegetable garden that provided food for the family, and the field where the children could freely play came as a bigger bonus.
================ Hankyoreh Newspaper 1998. 9. 25.