Description A bountiful autumn, a bountiful Chuseok. A picture book filled with the generous hearts of our ancestors as they welcomed the harvest festival! When the eighth month brings Chuseok, there is so much to eat—fresh rice, fresh fruit, songpyeon rice cakes—and so much to enjoy—ox games, palanquin fights, and ganggangsullae circle dances. When the round August moon rises for Chuseok, farmers pray to the moon for a bountiful harvest, and fishermen pray to the moon for a plentiful catch. What wish does the jade rabbit make to the moon? Misty white fog rose each morning, crickets chirped each evening—and before we knew it, autumn had arrived. The scorching summer heat has quietly slipped away, and autumn has settled in. Gazing up at the clear, high sky and feeling the gentle breeze, life itself seems to gain a little more ease. And when we look out over fields where the five grains and countless fruits we sowed and tended with care are finally ripening, our hearts fill with the same boundless abundance. Our ancestors, too, must have felt that life was worth living as they gazed at the high autumn sky, the wide fields, and the full moon rising bright over the hill behind their homes. And surely they felt a natural urge to give thanks to the heavens and their ancestors for such blessings. And so, since ancient times, when the full moon of the eighth month arrived, we have prepared all kinds of food from the fresh grains and fruits of the season, held rites of thanksgiving to heaven and to our ancestors, and thrown lively celebrations to lift each other's spirits after the hard work of farming. This tradition traces all the way back a thousand years to the gabae customs of the women of Silla. This book, May Every Day Be Like Chuseok, No More No Less, is filled with the generous hearts of our ancestors as they welcomed the abundance of autumn and Chuseok. For children today, who may think of Chuseok as simply a day to visit grandparents, and for adults who, worrying about the short holiday travel, food preparation, and dishes, rarely get to fully enjoy the holiday's true joy—this picture book faithfully recreates the rich and abundant Chuseok scenery that people of the past experienced and cherished. From the scene of the whole family gathering to fry jeon pancakes and shape songpyeon rice cakes while carefully preparing the ancestral rite table, to the lively communal scene of the whole village gathering together for moon-viewing and ganggangsullae dancing, readers will feel the living spirit of celebration seep into their hearts. The moon is rising, the moon is rising—who will see it first? Let's hurry! Both the jade rabbit and Suni each pull out a wish they've kept hidden in their hearts and pray to the moon. May Every Day Be Like Chuseok, No More No Less may feel a little unfamiliar at first, as its illustrations are not simply pretty and cute like those in many other picture books. That's because the art was created not by a typical picture book illustrator, but by the artist Lee Gimcheon, known for his distinctive body of work portraying nature and people—flowers and birds, mountains and trees, and animals. Though the images in the book appear small, no wider than 30 centimeters, the original paintings are actually large-scale works, each over a meter in size. As the frames shift and unfold in keeping with the nature of a picture book, turning its pages feels like walking through a gallery, admiring each piece of art one by one. Created over several months of dedicated work in the artist's gallery-studio in Eumseong, North Chungcheong Province, this 'Chuseok series' captures the deeply personal images of the holiday etched into the artist's heart. Meanwhile, the small, endearing mischief of the playful jade rabbit as he wanders in and out of the house instantly closes the distance that can often exist between a reader and a purely 'artistic' picture book. From the very first scene, where our hero the jade rabbit discovers a plump, ripe chestnut, to the bashful moment when he shyly hands a basket of fruit to Suni, the girl he secretly loves, to the scene of him leaping with joy in his new Chuseok clothes—every page is filled with the natural, endearing gestures and movements of childhood. Warm, tender writing interwoven with traditional folk songs further deepens the beautiful and abundant atmosphere of Chuseok.