October 24, 2024

오하늘빛 is a 12-year-old girl who is embarrassed by her elderly parents, and the fact that she's the same age as her niece 오로라, who is in the same class at school and does better than her academically. The class decides to grow vegetables in the school garden, and make jack-o'-lanterns out of the pumpkins for their Halloween festival. Due to the declining birthrate and dwindling number of students, the school is scheduled to close, so the students are unhappy... But maybe someone can save the school?

The start of the story was interesting enough: the children learn about the school's imminent closure, which upsets them; the teacher suggests the vegetable-growing project and the kids have fun with wordplay while choosing which crop to grow; 하늘빛 reflects on the embarrassment she feels due to her family being different - her parents being in their 70s, her older brother being middle-aged and having a daughter the same age as her.

Then the story focuses solely on growing the vegetables: planting, growth, harvesting, using the produce... It feels very dry, with no indication of time passing (after all, it must be months to go from seed to harvesting) or anything else the characters experience during this time frame. The only character we really know and care about is 하늘빛, but her whole focus in on observing the pumpkins growing, so the connection with the character fades quite quickly.

Perhaps it becomes more interesting later on - we know there will be a Halloween party, and possibly some spooky happenings that somehow save the school - but I don't feel invested enough to push through to see what happens. I'm not sure I trust the writer to create an interesting and engaging end to the storyline given how bland the middle of the book is.

The language isn't particularly difficult: there's a lot of vegetable names and some gardening terminology, but other than that it's pretty straightforward.

Even though this is a children's story under 100 pages long, I just couldn't finish it. I don't like abandoning books, but this story felt like a slog - I got halfway through and couldn't face reading any more. Perhaps it would be interesting to the demographic it's aimed at, but it doesn't hold much appeal for adult readers.

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on October 30, 2024
on October 24, 2024
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on October 24, 2024
on October 24, 2024
on October 24, 2024