Description "If you have a bad memory you wish to erase, come to the Midnight Moonlight Restaurant!" A beautiful and fantastical story about memory and choice Every year, the Biryongso Literary Award brings fresh energy to literature for young readers by discovering new authors and works. For its 7th edition, the award has gone to Lee Bun-hee's Midnight Moonlight Restaurant. Midnight Moonlight Restaurant is a fantasy tale centered on the "Moonlight Restaurant," a mysterious place where customers can trade bad memories for delicious food. Its enchanting characters and the unique premise—handing over a bad memory in exchange for a wonderful meal—spark curiosity and draw readers deep into the story. After Yeonwoo happily eats a custard pudding topped with chocolate syrup, one of her "bad memories" disappears. The story unfolds with the mystery of what exactly that lost memory was, taking unexpected turns along the way. Through this, young readers are gently guided to consider a surprisingly deep question: "Would erasing all our bad memories really make us happy?" The judges—poet and children's author Kim Jin-kyung, children's author Kim Ri-ri, and children's literature critic Kim Ji-eun—praised the author's remarkable ability to craft such a moving and imaginative story out of the difficult theme of "a human life built upon memory." Invisible during the day, the Midnight Moonlight Restaurant appears only when the moon rises at night, glowing with a warm yellow light. It offers a place where the hardships and wounds we all carry through life can begin to heal. This is a healing story that both children and adults can read together and find comfort in. ■ Clip-clop, clip-clop—the strange and wondrous Midnight Moonlight Restaurant "Today, one bad memory will do." "Just one bad memory?" "That's right. Next time, it'll be two. Then three..." Yeonwoo, a girl who feels as lonely as if she were the only person left in the world, stumbles upon the Midnight Moonlight Restaurant one night, where she meets Eyelash Fox and Husky-voiced Fox. When she's told that giving up one bad memory will get her a cream cake studded with bright red strawberries between layers of white cream, Yeonwoo thinks back on what happened at school that day: she found 50,000 won a classmate had dropped, kept it instead of returning it, and used it to buy indoor shoes and school supplies. That guilty memory becomes the price of her delicious cake. The next night, Yeonwoo returns to the Midnight Moonlight Restaurant and offers up two more of her many bad memories. What could those two memories be, the ones she gives to Eyelash Fox and Husky-voiced Fox? Welcomed by Eyelash Fox and Husky-voiced Fox in their crisp white aprons and headscarves, the Midnight Moonlight Restaurant is filled with sweet, savory aromas. The story is vivid and immersive, stirring the senses of sight, smell, and touch. Readers will find themselves wondering what bad memory they themselves might offer up at the Moonlight Restaurant, seeing their own hearts reflected in the story. Through the heartfelt, warm dishes made by Eyelash Fox and Husky-voiced Fox, children are given a chance to look inward and reflect on themselves. ■ Shh! The bad memories I bring to the Midnight Moonlight Restaurant "The choice is yours to make. So, what will you order today?" Would erasing bad memories really make us happy? On her way to school, Yeonwoo runs into a drunken man she had once seen at the Midnight Moonlight Restaurant. Watching him being taken away in a police car, utterly lost and unfocused after losing all his memories, Yeonwoo feels uneasy about what she herself gave up. Soon after, she's caught having stolen money from a friend—yet she can't remember taking the 50,000 won, nor buying the shoes and supplies with it. She runs out of school and wanders until nightfall, then returns once more to the Midnight Moonlight Restaurant, asking, "Why does erasing a bad memory make me feel sadder instead of happier?" Through the two remaining bad memories Yeonwoo erased at the Moonlight Restaurant, the author delivers a powerful message: bad memories are not meant to be forgotten, but faced and overcome. The process by which the words "I love you, remember me"—hidden within a bad memory and lost along with it—finally return to Yeonwoo brings a depth of emotion that goes beyond sorrow, leaving readers deeply moved.