Description Discovering the true face of winter — something we've always known but never truly noticed Climate change around the world has brought many shifts, and one of the most striking is how the boundaries between seasons have blurred, making it harder to truly feel each season as it comes. And yet, without fail, winter always arrives. Look closely, and winter isn't just the cold, long season we imagine — it steps forward as a true friend, ready to play. Winter walks beside us down country paths and wraps a blue scarf of wind around our necks. It calls the wind to lift our kites higher and higher, and gathers cold winds and snow clouds to give us even more snow. Above all, winter paints breathtaking scenes of the winter sea, its horizon softly erased by snowstorms, and hugs us tightly from behind as we go zooming down on a sled. What we've always known but never quite realized is that these true faces of winter could only come to life because winter, our friend, opened its heart and came close to us. A winter picture book, ten years in the making, waiting for the right moment to truly meet winter Author Lee Mi-ae returns to meet winter nearly seven years after her book I Met Autumn. Having once lived in the city, the author moved to a small countryside village called 'Baemi,' where she came to fully face winter. The winter she met there felt like nothing less than a true friend. To capture winter's warmth and playfulness, she used a rich variety of onomatopoeia and mimetic words, giving the text a lovely rhythm. Illustrator Lee Jong-mi also spent three long years waiting to meet winter properly. Though trained in Western painting, she chose traditional rice paper and ink wash painting for the first time to truly capture the spirit of winter. The restrained colors and graceful lines are the result of countless brushstrokes of ink, patiently refined while waiting for winter to arrive. In I Met Winter, readers can fully savor the beauty of winter we'd almost forgotten — polished and perfected over a long stretch of time. Story Winter walks beside me down a country path, showing me all the places where winter is hiding. As we climb the hill together, the babbling stream that once chattered noisily now flows quietly, hushed beneath a thin layer of ice. Winter and I stand at the top of the hill and gaze out at the sea. From the hazy sky, winter calls down snow, blanketing even the mountain ridges in soft white. As winter passes through the village, icicles form tightly beneath the eaves. Excited, I lead the way, swinging an icicle like a little sword. We tumble and roll in the snow like puppies, rolling snowballs bigger and bigger until we build a giant snowman. Listening to the sound of winter — snow clumps softly falling from bent pine branches — I think to myself that such a wonderful friend must be invited back again next year.