Description Picking fights with hardworking ants, hunting for million-year-old fossils on the playground, dreaming up a kind robot teacher, and marching the teacher out to sell drinks because of Vita 300 — have you ever met a mischief-maker as extraordinary as this? 【Interview with Song Eon, Author of Kim Baebultungi's Adventure】 *Is Kim Baebultungi based on a student you met at school? He's a very special and outstanding student. I've been teaching for over 20 years now, and I consider meeting 'Kim Baebultungi' a tremendous stroke of luck as a children's author. I don't think I'll meet a student like him again within the next ten years. *You've written about many different children before, like in Congratulations on Graduating, Song Eon Elementary School and Kim Gucheongubaek. Was there a particular reason you decided to write Kim Baebultungi's story as a five-book series? Our society, and adults in general, seem hell-bent on raising children to be anything but childlike. I believe that's the single biggest reason children are unhappy today. In this frustrating and difficult world, Kim Baebultungi is a character who shows, without holding back, a life that is truly childlike and true to the essence of a child's heart. He's such a wonderfully unique kid that it was almost too much to fit all his fresh adventures into just five books. I hope children everywhere who read Kim Baebultungi's Adventure will rediscover the most childlike sense of adventure hidden within their own hearts. *Why did you choose to attach the word 'adventure' to a story about school? In Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, there's a scene where Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn set off on a raft down the Mississippi River. I wondered how convincing it would be if, in today's reality, our hero Kim Baebultungi set off on a raft from the Han River to the West Sea. But then I thought — if there's a child who can see a new world beyond the frustrations of reality, and who keeps bringing that new world into being, isn't that child's life an adventure in itself? At its core, a child's heart 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 Baebultungi who don't fit into school life. What's your view on 'problem children'? In my view, there is not a single problem child in this world. There are only adults who create problem children. Seeing a mischievous kid as a 'problem child' is a flawed adult perspective. Mischief-makers and rascals are exactly the kids whose childlike hearts are still beating strong. I sincerely hope that adults who have problems will read stories full of childlike wonder and find a way to solve their own issues. *What is the class motto in your classroom? The very idea of a 'class motto' feels a bit uncomfortable to me, but reluctantly, I've come up with something close to one that I share with my students: "Kids, study a little, but play happily. That's how a new world comes." *Among your characters, is there one who resembles you as a child? Not really. As a child, I was introverted, passive, and often lost in thought. I don't like that kind of child. I don't even want to put a character like that in my stories. Simply put, I was a boring and unhappy kid. 【Story Highlights】 ■ Even More Outrageous Than Little Nicholas Kim Baebultungi enrolls at a school that seems as calm and peaceful as a fish tank. Bored with lessons, he plays outside all day, then shows up right at lunchtime, mouth wide open, begging for "just one bite," then pestering for "just one sip" of Vita 300 to wash it down. He even declares that, among all the things in the classroom, the old broom-wielding teacher is the most "broken." Kim Baebultungi's unpredictable, over-the-top antics stir up the fish-tank calm in an instant. In the eyes of both his teacher and classmates, he's the kid everyone stares at, thinking, "What on earth is with this kid?" But surpassing even Little Nicholas — the poster child for zaniness — Kim Baebultungi's antics begin to ripple across the still surface like the flap of a butterfly's wings. Even when Baebultungi himself isn't around, his mischief has a way of slipping into the classroom through the other kids. The classmates who once eyed him warily from a distance now start clapping, marveling, and even imitating his outrageous behavior.