Description Picking fights with hardworking ants, hunting for million-year-old fossils on the playground, dreaming up a kind robot teacher, and even trying to sell his own teacher for a bottle of soda—have you ever met a troublemaker this outrageous? 【Interview with Author Song Eon, Creator of Kim Baebulttugi's Adventures】 *Is Kim Baebulttugi based on a student you met at school? He's a truly special and extraordinary student. I've been teaching for over 20 years, and meeting 'Kim Baebulttugi' feels like a tremendous stroke of luck for me as a children's author. I doubt I'll meet another student like him in the next ten years. *You've written about many different children in books like Congratulations on Graduating, Song Eon Elementary School and Kim Guchunguebaek, but why did you decide to write the Kim Baebulttugi story as a special five-book series? Our society—and adults in general—seem obsessed with raising children to be anything but childlike. I believe that's the exact reason so many children are unhappy today. In this frustrating and troubling world, Kim Baebulttugi is a character who embodies, without holding back, a life true to the very essence of childhood. He was such a uniquely vivid character that five books could barely contain all the fresh adventures he kept having. I hope children everywhere who read Kim Baebulttugi's Adventures will rediscover the adventurous spirit of childhood hidden within their own hearts. *Why did you attach the word 'adventure' to a story about school life? In Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn set off on a raft down the Mississippi River. I wondered how believable it would be for today's Kim Baebulttugi to set off on a raft down the Han River to the West Sea. But then I realized that if a child can see a new world beyond the frustrating reality around him, and keeps turning that vision into reality, then that child's life is itself an adventure. At its core, childhood innocence seeks freedom—and isn't freedom just another name for adventure? *Adults often use words like 'problem child' or 'maladjusted' to describe kids like Kim Baebulttugi who don't fit in at school. What's your view on so-called problem children? In my view, there's no such thing as a problem child in this world—only adults who create them. Seeing a mischievous kid as a 'problem child' is simply a mistaken adult perspective. Mischief-makers and troublemakers are exactly the children in whom childhood innocence is most alive and vibrant. I sincerely hope that the adults who do have problems will read stories full of childlike wonder and find a way to solve their own issues. *What's the class motto in your classroom? Honestly, the very idea of a 'class motto' feels a bit awkward to me, but reluctantly, I share something like one with my students: 'Kids, study just a little, and play happily instead. That's how a new world will come.' *Is there a character in your stories who resembles you as a child? Not really. As a child, I was introverted, passive, and often lost in thought. Honestly, I disliked that kind of kid, and I wouldn't want to feature a character like that in my stories. In short, I was a rather boring and unhappy child. 【Highlights of the Book】 ■ Even More Outlandish Than Little Nicholas Kim Baebulttugi enrolls in a school that seems as calm and peaceful as a quiet fish tank. Finding lessons boring, he spends the whole day playing outside, then shows up right at lunchtime, opening his mouth wide and begging the teacher for just one bite, then pestering for just one sip of soda to wash it down. Among all the things in the classroom, he declares that the most 'broken' item is the old broom—the teacher herself! Kim Baebulttugi's unpredictable, over-the-top antics instantly stir up the stillness of that peaceful fish tank. In the eyes of both his teacher and classmates, he's the kid everyone stares at, thinking, 'What is with this child?' But surpassing even Little Nicholas, that famous icon of childhood mischief, Kim Baebulttugi's antics begin to ripple outward like the flutter of a butterfly's wings across calm water. Even when he's not around, his outrageous pranks somehow find their way into the classroom through the other kids. Classmates who once watched him warily out of the corner of their eyes now applaud, marvel at, and even imitate his wonderfully wild behavior.