Monday, July 30, 2012

The Color of Earth (Colors Trilogy: Book 1)


by Kim Dong Hwa, 319 pages

A young widow and her daughter experience new / first love in their small rural Korean village.

Lovely, this.  Inspired by his mother's memories of her own youth, Kim recounts young Ehwa's coming-of-age as she ventures out from her and her mother's tavern porch to explore the world around her and the young woman she's destined to become.  The backgrounds are beautifully detailed, the figures more stylized and simple, drawing attention to the symbolic role of the natural world and its processes over the passing seasons and emphasizing the archetypal nature of the characters.

It amuses me that I picked this first volume of the trilogy for my graphic novel discussion group before I knew that ALA had listed it among the top challenged books of the year for two years running.  *shrug*  This is a coming-of-age story.  Puberty.  It happens.  *sigh*

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