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A special evening with author Helena Ku Rhee - 05.26.2021

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Renowned picture book author Helena Ku Rhee shares stories with the WISH community about her history and what inspired her to become an author.

Show Transcript

alright welcome everybody so nice to see faces of kids that we missed being in the library everyday and parents and grandparents wonderful to see you Amy Stephan and along with Jen Scott and Allison Grover Corey we are the three co-chairs of the library wish and we are really really thrilled to welcome author to read tonight Hello mystery is a part of our wonderful celebration of a API American or Asian-American Pacific Islander heritage month or so happy to have her join us and talk about books tonight in Arthur process and she's going to give about a 50 minute presentation and there's going to be a couple question and answer portion throughout so if you want to ask her a question please I've been in the chat to Miss Jen me or Miss Allison and we can also include if you would like to jump on your mic and ask her yourself that's great we would love to hear straight from you or if you want us to ask for you put that in your chat with your question and you can do it as early as possible because there might be a couple different chat question and answer sessions all right so without further Ado some misread has two beautiful picture books out you're all familiar with the paper Kingdom that you see up there we read that during virtual library last week she also has the turtle ship with which some of you guys saw it also and there's two more books that are coming out in the next year or so that I misread will share with us so she was born in Korea right when and she moved over to the United States actually to Los Angeles when she was about to and grew up here but has lived all over the world we'd love to hear maybe about some of your travel in different places that you live but she currently lives back in Los Angeles so I'm not too far from where all of us are right now which is pretty special anyway like I said please send your questions and if you want to and Lincoln the chat for if you want to purchase her books she's going to personalize them from children's book world so I'll put the link in there and without further Ado please give a very warm wish welcome to Miss Elena cury thank you so much for that info and it's so nice to be here thanks to everyone that wish for inviting me as your guest I'm so honored and I'm sure that you want to hear a little bit about my writing journey and I'm go first take you to the beginning of my writing Journey when I was a kid so I'm going to share my screen because I want you to see some photos of when I was a child Sofer will you see some photos of me with my parents when we first arrived here in La we moved here from South Korea when I was almost two and you'll see that you know we explored Los Angeles the three of us the story that I'm going to tell you little later is based on the fact that at this time my parents used to work as night janitor so keep that in mind because I'm going to talk about that a little bit later so during the time of these photos my Pera worked as Night Champions so she was a school photo of me in the third grade and Miss Smith was my absolute favorite teacher and here I am in the second row my best friend was Nina play the flute and my other friend was Andy and this boy here was Leon he and I were off and dance partner I didn't want to be his dance partner but Miss Nice made me dance with him when we learn to square dance because he and I were about the same I'm just standing on a lower step which is why I look a little shorter but he and I were about the same height so anyway Miss niece was my favorite teacher because she told us stories every day she had a sit on the story rug and she tell us a wonderful story either from a book or from her imagination and she knew how much I love Siri so one day she said Helena why don't you try writing your own story there's a story contest at the school coming up why do try writing your story and we'll see so I wrote a story about a talking chocolate bar and people ask me why a chocolate bar it was because I was obsessed with chocolate and I was so passionate about chocolate. my parents had to hide chocolate in the cupboards otherwise I would eat it all I don't recommend that because I have many cavities as a child I think I had about eight cavities because I love chocolate so much so in my story there's a girl with a talking chocolate bar and her job is to protect that chocolate bar for me being eaten or melting in the sun because it's a special chocolate bar you should eat or letter car melt in the sun this chocolate bar was special so I wrote All About That Special chocolate bar and you know what my Story 1 it wants first place in the story contest and yeah it was a man and I remember when I went to go up to the assembly the stage to get my award it was a gift certificate to a restaurant I could invite my family to dinner and I also got a ribbon stating first place and the most amazing part of that day I remember is when I walk back to my see my mom and Miss niece was sitting in the audience and they were both crying and not that's the moment I realized hey stories have power I have the power to make grown-ups cry I want to write Storybrooke stories for the rest of my life I want to feel powerful so I kept writing story so in this next photo you'll see me as a 10 year old my little brother William came along and that's his brother I mean that's his best friend Joey and William and Joey followed me everywhere and the reason why is because I was thinking of stories all day long aliens and dinosaurs everything that they love so they followed me everywhere if I climbed up a tree they wanted to climb the tree if I wore my hair in pigtails believe it or not they wanted me to tie their hair and pick yellow they wanted to be like me I loved it but sometimes it was a little annoying so remember what I told you about my parents working so hard well they worked as night janitors but also they both had Deja my dad move furniture Jennifer furniture store and my mom worked as a babysitter and then when my brother was born they stopped being night janitors but they got different off but they were working so hard and that is something that stayed with me and my mind they hardly certifications they were so busy just working trying to make money for the family and so I knew I had to work hard so I worked really hard at school and I got into Yale University for college and when I was at Yale I remember actually I felt a little lonely at first because I didn't know anyone there and I felt very different from my classmates because some of my classmates had already traveled to places like England or Australia and so many languages and I feel like I'm not like that I come from a working-class family and my parents work hard and I'm here on a scholarship my parents work hard to pay for me at to be at school until I felt very different from that and sometimes I felt a little lonely and homesick cuz yell is so far away from Los Angeles but what made me feel better was actually reading books because remember I mentioned I love store and so I yell I majored in English that means that you focus on one subject and my subject was English so I was reading books all day which made me feel better and after graduation I did a lot of thing when is Amy mentioned I lived in different places around the world like Paris and Asia and I went to law school and I became a lawyer because one thing I didn't mention to you before was when my parents worked a night janitor they cleaned a law firm and so I thought the cleaning a law firm maybe I should become a lawyer and so I became a lawyer and moved back to Los Angeles I got married and by this time I was making enough money to help my parents I help them with car payments I help them with their house payment I sent them on their first vacation abroad to a different country to Paris and Italy and so you know I was helping them out but I still wanted to write store and I was still writing all the time until one day I thought you know what I want to try to get my stories published what that means is the company makes your book and they make it available to everyone in the world so I sent those companies my story about different places in the world dinosaurs alien all the things I thought she would like and you know what those companies said nope we do not want your story I was so confused I didn't understand because my teacher love my story my brother and his friend Joey love my story but those companies told me your story is kind of sound like was already in the world or some of them told me your characters don't sound realistic enough oh I was so frustrated but I still wanted to write story and one night I got an idea because a writer that I knew told me some great advice she say if you really want to publish a story if you want to company to take your story and make a real book out of it think about something that touches your heart something that either makes you cry a little bit or something that makes you laugh something something sad something emotional because if it's emotional then it will touch the reader it will make them laugh or cry or whatever and so I thought you know what something that wait on me for my entire life with when I saw my parents working hard Non-Stop and so I decided to write this story this story is called the paper Kingdom and the paper kingdom is based on my childhood when my parents work does night janitor because I didn't mention this part to you before but my parents had to take me with them to work because they could not afford a babysitter I was about three or four at the time and I have to work go to work at night with my parents so let's went to the story of the paper Kingdom something's on the cover here's my name I wrote the story so I'm the author Helen a few weeks and here is the name of the artist Pascal Campion he did all average line and you will notice that my main character Daniel is sitting on a stack of books and their paper everywhere and when I saw this cover Pascal of the artist asked me so what do you think do you like it and I remember getting a little bit a little scary because I did not mention this to Pascal but somehow he scents that oh maybe there's a lot of people and their books and that was exactly what I saw because as I mention my parents clean a law firm with a lot of with a lot of books so this is exactly what I saw when I went to work with them and my mom was mopping and my dad was vacuuming that's exactly what I said let's take you into the world of the story of camper Kingdom mama and papa were nice and well they got ready for work. Ready for sleep tonight he was so very tired he snuggled into his Corner in his bed in the corner of the apartment suddenly Mama answered the phone oh I see that's okay she walked over to Daniel you have to come with us little bug and I'll stop sharing the screen right now so that I can show you the inside of the book and I'm sure a lot of you have already heard the story thanks to the teachers and Librarians there but I will give you a little summary of some of the pages to Sleepy Mama all wait for Aunt Clara that was clear she can't come tonight can I stay upstairs Wayans family know we are asking for too many favors then I'll stay here by myself I'll be good Papa shook his head and help Daniel change out of his pajamas and this is exactly what I've seen on most like my parents had to wake me up at 3 sleepy and I had to go to work with them and here's another page they're all car sputtered as they drove to Mama and Papa's work downtown and I'm going to share the screen right now because this page is really really important story and I'll tell you what so when Pascal showed me the sketches for the story he asked me so what scene do you like them and I told him this one this one because it's my strongest memories from that part my childhood I remember driving to work with my parents and in La you know we spend so much time in our cars normally and I remember the streets were empty the street lights were on the streets were quiet everybody was at home but my pain and I were going to work and I remember that really struck me while I was driving to work with them and this is the image I had when I came up with the story so when Pascal showed me this I was I was amazed it was so good the big glass building always look angry it seems to say stay out in the car Daniel ask later on I'm going to show you the actual photo of the building that my parents but this is the building that Pascal imagined in his own imagination something a little scary looking but Mama and Papa said no they hurry Daniel inside and we've found the security guard Daniel sit down wow you from soon you'll be as tall as me Daniel. If she's going to be a giant I won't tell anyone he's here  winked at Mama and Papa thank you Sam Papa said as they got in the elevator something that came out of my writer's imagination because when I was a kid there were no security guards in the building my parents had a key and they just went into work but I wanted to snow by putting a security guard he recognizes Daniel I wanted to show if Daniel has been in this building before because someone recognizes him that's the choice I made as a writer and if you write your own story your story is your world you can do anything you want in your world okay so I think I want to show the next image because it's also very very important okay so Daniel was so tired he felt like crying when can we leave mama and papa did not answer from a bit far the biggest broom mop spray vacuums and buckets so many tools Daniels need why is that stuff so dirty because it keep the kingdom Queen mama said Daniel was confused watching them so this image is really important because I asked have gel artist what's your favorite part of it and he said he loves this in why he said because he loves the difference between mama and papa working in the dark and Daniel stand the life because of an artist you work with light and dark right Shadow so for pastel this image was very interesting and that movie because it's exactly why I wrote this book I wanted to put a spot on the people who are normally invisible in our society the night chatted with people who work hard while everyone else is at work eating getting ready for bed or or watching TV brushing your teeth they work hard and they're so important you know they're essential workers they keep our cities clean but they're usually invisible because we don't see them I'm sure that your school normally has night janitors to That You Don't See so I really love pastels answer about this because this is the whole reason why I wrote this book because I wanted to have a book about Night Riders because how often do you see that not very awesome okay so next pay the paper Kingdom Papa said didn't we tell you before this is the land of the paperwork in the paper King now Daniel felt awake how come I never saw him where is he let's go see Mom I said maybe he's in his throne room they went to a large room with a desk as long as a banquet table in a castle but Altair stood behind the desk looks like it has gone to bed so Papa let's clean up for him now remember I said it was a law firm that's why there's so much paper and a lot of people ask me well did your parents imagine a paper Kingdom when you were little is that why you called this the paper conduct and my answer is no they told me a lot of different stories about the building about people who work at during the day but the paper kingdom is something that I came without came up with out of my writer's imagination because I was thinking in an office building there's a boss sometimes there are several buses and there are and there's other things that are structured that would like a kingdom with a king and queen rule at the top and everyone else at the bottom and that's kind of like how offices are structured you there's there's the boss maybe the co boss and then they're all the workers who take orders from the boss and it go by so I don't want it to show that by creating the paper Kingdom out of my own imagination because kids nail be honest kids you don't we want to hear about an office building with a boss and worker you would rather hear about a king and a queen and dragons and things like that right I know I would answer yes if I were so we can still answer yes even though I'm a grown up I would like to listen to Kingdom rather than off work office building really okay next page here they are cleaning up I won't reach you every part of the text but I want you to just get a sense of how hard they're working and Dad questioning will why do you have to pick up everything why do you have to clean the entire Kingdom and some people ask me why didn't you put a scene in the book where mama and Papa's pit Daniel down and tell him this is our job this is what we do be quiet I didn't do that because I wanted Daniel to be still in his imagination then adding a paper Kingdom because that's what my parents did to keep me quiet they had me imagining stories and fun things so that I would not get while they were working so hard but Daniel notices I'm sweating and coughing and sneezing and that's what I noticed too so I had to put that in my book okay so back to the book mama said looking around don't upset the queen where is she Daniel at Papa LED Daniel with a hallway she's usually over there and she's the busiest of all she sends paper to everyone in the Kingdom Mama dusting and Daniel helps a little by watering the plant and papa says let's go check out the bathroom I have to go yet the dental I know but let's make sure dragons aren't hiding dragons Daniel scoota behind oh don't worry they work for the king Papa said they're small and friendly but sometimes they hide because they're afraid of what Daniel asked the Chang Papa said and maybe the queen and I'm sure everyone who works in an office. I know is that sometimes you're a little bit afraid of the boss just like these dragons are afraid of the king and the Queen when they go to the bathroom Daniel was glad know dragons were there how to clean teach star maybe they're in the kitchen table dragons love to eat some people ask me why did you put a dragon and there's several reasons one reason is because remember it's the people can jump and in a lot of fairy tales on dragons that live in the chinga or that the knights fight you know the night the aren't the armored Knight usually fight the dragon by put dragons in the but the other reason is because when I was a kid dragons were some of my favorite I remember when I was about five six years old dream was to fly on a dragon to ride a dragon so when I Grew Older and I learned that Dragons Were Real I was so sad I was so sad because it was my dream to write a dragon and I knew that if I ever became a writer and if I ever had a book I would put so many dragons in there and that's how you see a dragon on the cover you see a dragon in the bathroom and this is all a dad Health imagination he's Imagining the drag and here they are the kitchen and again I won't read every line but you see Mama and Papa working very very hard the kitchen was dark and quiet Dragon Savannah guess they won't get caught today why are Dragon so messy as Daniel they should pick up their own trash okay now you feel Daniel's he's getting a little upset and that's because you're a little bit upset when I looked around at the huge is that people left behind or my parents just two people to clean up and made me really upset and even now today I think that really weighs on me because whenever I see a mess boys there are people who has dogs go outside my house very often and I just pick it up for them because I just know that people like gardeners or people who clean the streets will have to pick up that stuff and I know their jobs are really hard but I want to help them a little bit and so even now when I go to an office building and somebody spilled some tea on the counter or somebody left behind of napkins I just cleaned up because I want to make the lives of the janitors a little bit easier because I know that stretches to do the hard work mama said maybe the Aiden a rush and forgot to clean up they don't mean to be naughty oh now look at this Pascal's Camden on Daniel stay because he's really upset now but why did you have to clean it all and made Daniel hurt inside to see Mama and Papa clean such a huge mess by themselves not fair I'm going to yell at the Dragon he angrily threw a banana peel in the trash my boy so that's very close to how I used to feel too and I'm going to show you the next scene the bathroom scene here's the scene of Daniel getting upset that I just read to you and here is this number how I told you that I knew that I wanted to put a lot of dragons in my story Pascal first show me the sketch of the scene just a couple of dragons and I put in more and so he added some more Dragon I kind of wish you'd showed more dragons because I just love dragon anyway no little bug pink and yellow dragon mama said you know what that means Daniel Shrugged someday you'll have to be the king Papa smile then you can sit in the throne room and tell the dragons to be nice and Daniel like the sound of that can I see the phone number again Daniel side of the tall chair he closed his eyes and imagined a kingdom with small dragons who picked up their own litter in the castle papers were piled high in the throne room the chair to reach the sky Mama whispered remember to be nice when you become king the dragons work hard to be harmed as she wiped the window and here we arrive at the end of the story Daniel didn't realize they were home stop Mama tuck him in he stumbled into this bed no corner of the apartment he thought about the paper Kingdom he decided if he became king someday he would not yell at the little dragon but he would make sure they clean their mess mama and papa would not have to and you'll see that there's a little shadow of a crown that Pascal put around Daniels head and remember how I mentioned that my parents clean the law firm and later on I graduate from college I went to law school and became a lawyer it's because they encouraged me to dream big they told me I could be whatever I wanted and so I thought well maybe I can be a lawyer and a writer and so that's what I did I decided to become a lawyer because I thought why you seem to have a lot of power they make a huge mess and somebody cleans it up for them why don't I become a lawyer so I became a lawyer and I also became a writer the dreams with me ever since I was little and here we are arriving at the back cover of the book The small family that was me with my parents before my brother came along and then here we are doing goes here and I will show you a photo of the actual building those are my parents standing in front of the actual building that used to clean on Wilshire Boulevard they clean floors 3 and 4 there were other night janitor but we never saw them because we were only on three or three and four and this is my this is my this photo was taken two years ago before the pandemic changed everything in the world where we could actually walk around everywhere without mask but I also wanted to show you a little bit about the artist this is Pascal camp she also lives in LA and he does a lot of magazine cover like for the New Yorker and he also does animation for the studios and he is so talented and I'll tell you a little more about the book that he and I have coming out next year because that one's going to be really special to and this story was the people change them was all about the power of imagination now I'm going to stop sharing my screen because I would love to hear any question you might have about the paper Kingdom or about my childhood or anything before I move on so please dial do raise your hand and any question I am open to so please do tell me a joke what's the time in the chat so I'm Helena we have August and Ellis August is in first grade and Ellis is in kindergarten and they write in the chat what are your neck stories about they have a copy of the paper King demands is me and my brother love it oh my goodness thank you so much I love it when and yes I do have a two more books coming out next year and I'll play some images a little bit later on but I can tell you the titles no one is Rosa song and the other one is sora's seashells and I will explain a little bit more later on thank you for that question all right. We're really excited to hear about your Nextbook okay let's see and then Sophia V and 2 in 2nd grade she asked I think she's a mess will you write more books so I'm beyond even Beyond but you are coming out next year yes I have so many ideas for books the hard thing is finding which idea to focus on and a writer a really famous writer once gave me great advice which is he all right moves your heart whether it's something that makes you laugh hysterically or that makes you cry I think I mentioned that to you earlier so I have to pinpoint which story is the strongest and then I will focus on that store but yes I'm writing all the time good question thank you okay here's a great question also from on Olive she's a third grader and she's asking why did you make the character a boy oh wow that is such a good question and it's a question that writers have to ask themselves every time we start a new story who should be the main character should it be a boy a girl a young girl and older boy and so I chose call Daniel at my main character and I kind of struggled with whether it should be a boy or girl I made it a little boy because I wanted anyone reading the story to imagine any kid out in the world because one day arrived when the reader arrive at the play the story there's an author's note that talks about my true story and so I didn't want the reader to see me exactly I wanted them to just imagine whoever they want it what is a boy or a girl with short hair maybe if you arrive at the author's note it's kind of a letter that I wrote to the companies that I wanted to work with to make this book and the company that finally bought that there are actually many of them that wanted work with me on this book it was a bidding war which was really exciting that means that many companies offer you more money more money more you work with them on your story so exciting for me as a writer the author's note is exactly the letter I wrote to be publishing company to work with them and this this company loved it so much they put it at the back of the books I hope you'll take a look awesome thank you okay my my daughter hear Ella and first grade would like to ask you something do you like to read what is my favorite book I like so many of them I normally likes you books about a very adventurous girl or boy someone who loves Adventures because that was me and down when I was a kid I loved this series called The Chronicles of Narnia because these kids go through and they land in a different world I love stories like that adventurous story thank you oh my gosh what are your favorite book published that's a tough one because you know every book that I work on I pour my heart and soul into it and so I love all of them but maybe because this is my newest one and I've been talking to so many people and it's brought me so many readers into my life I've been really enjoying the Journey of this so I will say that I've been having a lot of fun wonderful adventures in Friendship stinks Tunes book wonderful okay I'm so Kelly and Bo Telly's and 2nd and boas in first Telly did you have your hand up did you want to ask her or say something to her I just wanted to say that I love you but thank you oh my goodness I really appreciate that and I'm so glad you're here and I love that you love reading and you love books you know someday I used to be a writer and you could be talking to an audience of kids and grown up like me maybe you could even make grown-ups cry weight goal to Aspire to okay let's see oh and then I'm Nico and into in second grade and Owen and first grader asking what inspired you to write Turtle ship I don't know if it's coming later oh yeah they're all about it I will show you exactly why I was inspired and I will show you some cool images so just hang on maybe we can take like one or two or three more questions and then we can move on to the okay perfect and then also another shout-out from Ronan and Stella are at Twins and 2nd and they said they also a paper Kingdom and all of your other stories thank you I love that book that you wrote is your favorite so I know that you just answer I'm in in Henry and fourth grade did you want to ask a question yourself or do you want me to ask it where are you at me for about a year-and-a-half I went night with my parents and then my parents realized oh this is this is too hard to maintain especially when my brother came along it was a little bit impossible my parents which doll I actually have one more reason was that ideas or scenes from your memories of going every night with your parents that you did including the book that you maybe before the book was finalized that you couldn't include yes another strong memory that I had and this is a great question another strong memory I had was you know sometimes I really cranky and one of the things my mom did was she wanted me to be entertained so she would empty waste baskets full of paper into a bigger wastebasket and then she would put me and the smaller wastebaskets and Zumi around and I remember when I was growing up and I had these memories about that I said Mom those baskets are pretty dirty no and she said they were just full of paper and you love that you loved magiting that you were in a race car I did that for you because you loved it and I was like okay I can't complain with that so there are things that I had to select in order to make a cohesive story because if I threw in too many things it would get too messy so I had to phone on just the paper Kingdom that is a great question so we'll have more time for questions towards the end so why don't I move on to the turtle ship and I'm not going to read the entire book because you know we don't have time for the entire book I will show you the key seeds and what inspired me to write it okay here we go so this is the turtle ship this is actually my first book and what's interesting about it is I hope this many years ago I wrote the story many many years ago over a decade ago over 10 years ago and something was wrong with the story and I knew something was wrong but I could not figure it out and I finally picked up the story again about 5 years ago and I read through my knew exactly what was wrong with it what was wrong with that my main character used to be an old man I used to have the old man all of the white ferret as a main character and I realized kids don't want to read about an old man with a white beard they probably would rather read about a young boy with a pet funeral so I rewrote the story and that's it's sold to a publishing company they said oh this is a very cool I get lipnicka book on here you have my name again Helena Curry as the author and the artist is different this time her name is Colleen Kong Savage and what's so cool about this book is that Colleen Works in paper collage what that means is that every single thing you see here whether it's the hair the turtle the ship is made of tiny tiny Bits of Paper that she cut out she order paper from around the world from Mexico Japan Korea India and then she created this image using tiny pieces of paper and I'll show you exactly how later on so I got the idea just to answer the question that I received earlier I got the idea because remember how I mentioned that after college I lived in several different places in the world one of the places within South Korea because family left the country when I was so little I have no memories of it so I went back and I live there for a year and during that time I learned about the turtle ship it was a real ship that existed around the 15-16. very very long time ago and it was shaped like a turtle and they put a dragon head on the front of the ship because at the time dragons were the most creature in Asia and remember how I said I love dragon well I learned that in Asia Dragons Were water animals they lived in the sea they don't really fly they swim which is why it's a boat at the head about but the ship was inspired by a shape of Eternal it even has a little tail at the end I thought that was so cool and I thought Americans don't know about this part of Naval History so why don't I write a story about it and that's how Turtle ship came into existence and the stories are All About A Boy Named Sue that's a Korean name mentioned who has a pet turtle named koboji is a is a pet turtle and the word Kabuki name is turtle in Korean if you say, get yourself you'll be speaking Korean you just learn a new language so all remember what I said all of these things are made tiny tiny pieces of paper that calling Twisted in shape and pasted onto the page and there's a big announcement in the Kingdom saying that anyone can design a new Battleship and if you win the design contest you will be able to sail the Seas with the Royal Navy and if you look at suits in here she's dreaming about travel she loved the idea of seeing different lands in traveling but she's a poor boy doesn't know how so he thinks I will enter the contest because then I will win a prize which is to travel the Seas with the Royal Navy so he tries to build his own Battleship and of course and each time you try only call Pookie his pet turtle does not sink complicated floats to the shore and he tried this many many times and finally he realizes oh my goodness my pet turtle is perfect design for a ship why don't I take this to the Royal Palace and of course at first his parents say that's ridiculous and Jim everyone will laugh at you you're just a kid and people do laugh but finally finish and convinces his parents to take him to the Royal Palace where they bow and present their idea to the king so you can hold of his parole and says King your Royal Highness I think you should design a ship in shape of my pet turtle he's strong and mighty and he never sinks and you see the cat in the corner this cat will have a very big role in the story because everyone listening to Central is laughing silly kid go back and play with your toys but then the cat tries to attack the turtle and what can turtles to do especially things like box they can stick their limbs and so they can stick your head and that's their protection and that's what he does and the cat gets frustrated and tries to attack the turtle but I can't and it goes away I'll tell you a funny story once add a visit the school visit and there was a turtle expert in the audience who was the kid who knew all about turtles and so he asked me seven million questions about turtles to testing to see if I knew the answer unfortunately I had read up on turtles so I knew that this was a box turtle not a sea turtle because box turtles can talk all their limbs sea turtles have big Flappers and they do not have their limbs so I knew that if and I could answer most of this question anyway so the king finally agrees with Susan that sometimes Nature has the best design what do airplanes look like whales are dolphins sometimes Nature has the best designs and that's what I wanted to go with the turtle the turtle as the inspiration for the ship I love this. I love this page because it's functions dream coming true and it's kind of like my dream coming true as a writer I tried for many years and I got rejected people at the publishing company said no we don't want your stories dinosaur no we don't want your stories about alien but finally they wanted my stories about the total ship and the paper Kingdom and so my story is kind of like sentient storage rejected and then finally the dream coming true and here I'll show you Colleen this is Colleen the artist and me at a book signing in New York about three or four years ago and calling did a paper collage of her face with the hair heart made of people with paper in the eyes and this is her process first she sketches that she goes through many many sketches and then she cuts out little pieces of paper to put on top to make the close the hair she actually told me that she got carpal tunnel while cutting all the tiny pieces of paper carpal tunnel tunnel is when your wrist starts to hurt and you have to wear a little break she told me that sometimes a tiny pieces of paper worth Coastal little itty bitty that she had to use a magnifying lens so I was really impressed with that and the theme of the story is to dream big and before I go to the a series of questions I just wanted to tell you about my about my next books coming out so here's my website if you want to stay in touch with me and learn more about my books coming out you can ride their Rosa song and you are the first group of people the first students were able to see the first inside image from roses song because there is going to be a pet parrot inside the book I really wanted to show you the actual cover but I asked my publishing company today can I share the cover with the students of wish and they said Hold on because the cover that you saw is not really the final cover so we want to wait to show Vinyl cover to everybody so I have to be a little patient but I can show you the cover of Surah seashells which is my other book coming out and here is Sora and her grandmother and it's all about how Sora feels a little insecure about her name's Laura everyone says are you sure you're not feeling it are you sure you're not supposed to be but I wanted to encourage him to have names that are a little bit different to be proud of their name my Korean name is Hayden and I used to be bullied a little bit when I was a kid because my name kind of sound like hey you so kids would just say hey you and I didn't really like that but I learn to appreciate my name As I Grew Older but that's what the story so we have time for a few more questions so I will stop sharing my screen and I would love to hear more of your questions during the five minutes we have left anybody has any questions you can raise your hand if you want to ask Miss Helena directly feel free to raise your hand or put it in the chat oh I see I see him go ahead spell Yukon you sell it in second grade thank you I'm really excited for the next book to come out thank you so much I'm really excited too and I can't wait to start with you I am so proud to be working with Pascal on one of the books and a different artist on a on the other blokes so you'll see the different arts style you'll be really interesting was nice enough to say that you can get my children's book world and if you want I'll sign it for you I can put your name on it and write you a little message and sign it for you so yes please do order food children's book world I live very close to the bookstore so I'm going to run over there in a few days to sign books for you yeah that's really exciting anyone else in that you can raise your hand if anybody else has any questions or any icy August 4th at August raising is he okay go ahead I guess he's in first grade let's see it with his question is hi this is actually Alice August little girl start show me a joke about a ninja and the Dragon a book about a ninja and a dragon did you do those are so cool those images are so cool true true that are you serious while you can be an illustrator one day that's amazing I love the color I love the shape you can definitely be an illustrator someday and maybe you'll work with a rider like me that would be so cool thank you yeah oh my gosh I left those are really good really good and then tell Ian Bo again in the chat on said they love your ideas from Kelly thank you can see if anyone else has any hands up and he he's done while you while you look in the chat I have one more question are you thinking about writing any chapter books for kids like middle grade or do you just really love pics and you want to keep reading picture books great question I do love picture books I think they're phenomenal or form because you got the story and the artwork and when they come together it's magic but I will say that I have been working on books for older audiences because I I've been told I'm grateful for this but I've been told that I have a good middle grade voice and I think that's because I really like are the Schumer that 789 year olds enjoy so I think that I am going to pursue middle grade as well so I've been I've been working on something so we'll see that's super exciting and we have one more I think all is wants to make a comment she's in third grade go ahead Olive I like to draw dragons on the Chilean sea leaf that is so cool. Use the program procreate now I use Autodesk SketchBook oh wow he also write your own book that would be so amazing I just want to say I when I was starting out my job years ago I used to work in an office with open space and I used to work late at night because it only time it was quiet and I could think and a family would come in to clean at at 9 at first I was not it was kind of like they bothered me because it would make noise but then I got to know them and I was there I was wondering like am I coming in here too many times late at night that I know them but I actually like meeting them and knowing them and they were very sweet and they actually invited me to a family event one time because I got so close but I couldn't go but it always reminds me that that's why the story touched me and I felt like I knew those people say I've had a similar story from my childhood but I've experienced similar things because I know that I've done my job as an offer to move people to connect with them and so I really appreciate when you told me that's that's very cool that you became friends with the family thank you so much that's a nice I have a question yeah I mean I'm assuming your parents were you know just obviously our tsar and we're so proud of you when I first saw you know the paper Kingdom and its entire I would like to know if you could speak to how they initial reaction was all bound and published in the final products the final book actually having dinner at a restaurant just the three of us and it was one of the most poignant moving moments of my life because it was the first time I saw my father cry he was so touched that story of hardship was going to become a story to share with the world because it's not just the story of hardship it's a story of Hope and a story of Great accomplishments and so you know it was very moving for me to see that because my dad's kind of a I have never seen him cry before he doesn't really show emotions so the fact that he was so moved really moved me and I'm if you go to my website there's actually an interview that Pascal and I did for MPR and I go into this part about how my parents reacted a little bit and after the the segment aired I had so many strangers reach out to me saying you made me cry while I was driving or I am weeping hard right now while cooking pasta so you know how to listen if you have time that's great. I think I'm missing you you listen to that didn't you yeah yeah I didn't think of you yeah I love that interview I think the producer of that interview really captured the essence of what the book means to me that my parents and you can see their interview and there's a link on Helen his website so if you if you want to hear those and there's a bunch of different articles and stuff so there's a lot of great stuff on her website to check it out I was thinking about what you were saying family who have been with us since the very beginning and an Incredible family and their children go to Captain grandchildren wow very hard and they say come in the evening in the kids are able to go home they don't have StayWell the parents the parents and grandparents clean but it always I I went out of my way to become friends with them when when I first joined wish 9 years ago oops I just unplug my power cord that would be bad like 5 Seconds about how enriched all our lives are when we reach out and get to know others absolutely that's so important and I just found all this so touching and I think I mentioned the other day that all the second and third graders I read to loved this part of the story and they wanted to see pictures of your parents if it can we see a picture of one class asked me where are her parents they wanted to know if they were in the back of the Dust jacket and so on so just thank you for sharing all of that with us really special I wanted to ask one other question that I thought might interest others as well I noticed that one your books is your is it Rosa song that that yes Publishers don't really like that we actually became friends through the process of making the paper Kingdom Pascal and I met and we actually before the pandemic hit we did when we were able to do one book event at children's book World which was great and so because the paper Kingdom has done quite well the Publishing Company song why don't we bring these two people back together again for another book and I mentioned before I'm constantly writing and so they ask me for another story The Publishing Company and I said I have one here it is Rose's song and they said Pascal would love to illustrate this so we came together and we're working on that right now as we speak as I mentioned to you I just saw a rough draft of the cover yesterday I was hoping to share with you today but they said to wait a little bit but you know he and I have been working through the illustration she's been asking me does this look right for the inside of the apartment does this look right the hair color you know those questions so it's been really fun to do that I've often read interviews or talk to me who got to do this when they were you know really had published like 10 or 12 picture books are there was super famous illustrator and so it just makes me so happy that you're getting to do that yeah you're right usually authors and illustrators just don't get to work together because they want everything to be separate they want the author to write the story of the illustrator just to create the artwork using their own imagination and they don't want the author to constantly give their opinions and make the illustrators job harder but they saw the Publishing Company saw that has gallon I work so well together on the paper Kingdom and quite frankly I really respect the art process and I don't want to be too bossy about it so I let him what he wants and if he has questions I'll answer them so we were allowed to collaborate again for Rosa song which I'm really grateful for your coming to the end of our time no I thought I had a couple of messages in the chat from people directly to me just saying how wonderful this is and you know thanking everyone and you for being here with us today I wondered if there was any last questions before we go and then I think we can give a big wave and a big thank you to Harrison did you want it Harrison something just wanted to check what about Nico and Owen do they have any more questions okay alright well you've all been so fantastic I love wish what a great school and phenomenal questions I can tell that there are some authors and what's traders in the audience and I'm sure in the future I'll be enjoying your books your stories I would love to read them in and we're so happy also that your local and also supporting children's book world yes it's a great place to go all around thank you for being here today everyone thank you so much so let me get so much have a good night bye

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A special evening with author Helena Ku Rhee - 05.26.2021

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