Lunar New Year 2024

Celebrating Lunar New Year 2024!

What’s New in the Year of the Dragon?

click on a pho­to to learn more about the book

Paula Yoo with her new book Rising from the Ashes

What do dragons mean to Paula Yoo?

“In Kore­an cul­ture, drag­ons sym­bol­ize courage and hope. I can­not think of a more fit­ting sym­bol to rep­re­sent Los Ange­les’ Kore­an Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty who rose above the ash­es of the 1992 Los Ange­les upris­ing to forge a new Kore­an Amer­i­can iden­ti­ty of courage, hope, and sol­i­dar­i­ty. It was an hon­or to inter­view the Kore­an Amer­i­can ‘drag­ons’ who sur­vived ‘Sa I Gu’ with resilience and resolve.”

In the pho­to, Paula is stand­ing in front of the recon­struct­ed shop­ping cen­ter which is shown burn­ing on the cov­er of Ris­ing from the Ash­es: Los Ange­les 1992. Edward Jae Song Lee, Latasha Har­lins, Rod­ney King, and a City on Fire. Find this book at your favorite book­store or library after 7 May 2024.

Thoughts on dragons from Erin Yun

“To me, drag­ons rep­re­sent pow­er, strength, wis­dom, and vital­i­ty, along with a healthy dash of beau­ty and won­der. But my mom was born in the year of the Drag­on, and so most­ly drag­ons remind me of her — and she is the strongest per­son I know, so it makes per­fect sense.”

Pip­pa Park Crush at First Sight

Erin Yun Pippa Park First Crush
Aram Kim Tomorrow is New Year's Day

Aram Kim celebrates New Year’s Day

“Start­ing the Year of the Drag­on with amaz­ing vibes in front of the mur­al at the Kore­an Cul­tur­al Cen­ter in New York, paint­ed by fel­low kiBookans! I rarely thought about drag­ons before, but this year already feels like it’s full of ener­gy — it must be the dragons!”

Tomor­row Is New Year’s Day: Seol­lal, a Kore­an Cel­e­bra­tion of the Lunar New Year

A Lunar New Year greeting from Helena Ku Rhee

“Drag­ons have always been my favorite mytho­log­i­cal crea­tures, prob­a­bly because they appeared so often in the sto­ries I favored as a kid. Although my lat­est book, Sora’s Seashells, does­n’t fea­ture any drag­ons, they appear through­out my oth­er book, The Paper King­dom — my most per­son­al sto­ry to date. I think I’ve been secret­ly hop­ing that drag­ons are real … they cer­tain­ly are in my imagination!

Sora’s Seashells

The Paper Kingdom

Helena Ku Rhee and Sora's Seashells

Happy Lunar New Year from Chris Soentpiet 

The Last Dragon

The Year of the Dragon

Emeline Lee shares her New Year greeting

“Drag­ons remind me of my grand­fa­ther, T.K. Lau, who was the inspi­ra­tion behind my STEM pic­ture book, Bonnie’s Rock­et. Born the year of the drag­on, he grew up dur­ing the Sec­ond Sino-Japan­ese war, immi­grat­ed to the U.S. to sup­port his fam­i­ly, and became an engi­neer for NASA’s Apol­lo moon-land­ing missions.”

Bon­nie’s Rocket

Emeline Lee Bonnie's Rocket
Linda Sue Park Gondra's Treasure

Linda Sue Park sends New Year greetings

I have a pic­ture book about drag­ons! Gondra’s moth­er and father are from dif­fer­ent drag­on tra­di­tions — Asian and Euro­pean — so she is a mixed-race dragon. 🙂

Jen­nifer Black Rein­hardt’s illus­tra­tions inspired my sis­ter Julie Hub­ble to craft Gondra in both nee­dle felt­ing and pottery.

Drag­ons have that kind of power!

Gondra’s Trea­sure

Hyun Sook’s New Year’s story!

“On New Years Eve, I went to see the largest drone show in Kore­an his­to­ry on Gwan­gal­li Beach in Busan. 100,000 peo­ple wait­ed to see a giant, ani­mat­ed blue drag­on soar through the sky, through fire­works, then count down to mid­night, but noth­ing hap­pened. Then some­one behind me said “It’s already 2024.” We were so dis­ap­point­ed and went home. We learned lat­er that they had can­celed the show with­out telling any­one. We came back at 7pm the next day for the resched­uled show, but again, noth­ing hap­pened. Final­ly, after almost half an hour wait­ing, they worked out the tech, the drag­on appeared in the sky and every­one count­ed down to Jan­u­ary 1st at 7:24pm and laughed. I learned that this year, every­thing may not hap­pen exact­ly when we expect it to, but great things still happen.”

Banned Book Club

Junghwa Park, wishing you a wonderful New Year

“Drag­on means pow­er and mir­a­cle. It reminds me of roy­al author­i­ty in Kore­an history.”

Wish Soup: A Cel­e­bra­tion of Seollal

Jenna Yoon’s fantasy series

“Drag­ons are mag­i­cal, wise and benev­o­lent. Lia Park and the Miss­ing Jew­el, the first book in the Lia Park series, includes the leg­end of King Mun­mu who wished to turn into a drag­on so he could pro­tect Korea.”

Lia Park and the Miss­ing Jewel

Jenna Yoon Lia Park and the Missing Jewels

“Tend your inner fires, Dragons!”

Thoughts from Robin Ha:

“When we think of drag­ons, our minds expand to accom­mo­date their pow­er, size, and will. Drag­ons are mag­nif­i­cent because we imag­ine them to be that way. There­fore, to me, drag­ons rep­re­sent the grand­ness of our imag­i­na­tion and also how our imag­i­na­tions can have an impact in the real world. Some peo­ple in Asia plan their preg­nan­cy so their chil­dren will be born in the year of the drag­on because they want their chil­dren to have the pow­er and the for­tune the drag­on sym­bol­izes. Every­one in the world knows what drag­ons are even though drag­ons are myth­i­cal crea­tures. They are as real as any ani­mals in our minds because they have exist­ed in our sto­ries as long as human civ­i­liza­tions. Maybe we humans have achieved so much because we allowed our­selves to dream about dragons.”

The Fox Maid­ens, avail­able 13 Feb­ru­ary 2024

Jogak­bo ban­ner, a tra­di­tion­al Kore­an design, copy­right Aram Kim, used here with permission.

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