My Face Is Big and Round Like the Sun

"A picture book that becomes the final destination

for the countless travelers who set out to discover themselves."_Kim Ji-eun (Children's & Young Adult Literature Critic)

By Eom Jeongsun, winner of the Gwangju Biennale Park Seo-Bo Art Prize and the Grand Prize for Korean Picture Books—

a deeply moving and radiant story of beauty and self-expression,

created hand in hand with visually impaired children through the magic of touch

A new work has arrived from Eom Jeongsun, the artist who told a wondrous story of disability and creativity in When You Touch an Elephant. Children who see the world through touch ask a question: "When I feel people with my hands, everyone is shaped the same. Faces are round, skin is soft, and hair and eyebrows feel like thread. So what do people see that makes them call some pretty and others ugly?" Her new picture book, My Face Is Big and Round Like the Sun, answers this extraordinary question through art. From over thirty years of diverse art projects with visually impaired children, the artist has drawn out the moments that stirred her heart most deeply.

The central theme of My Face Is Big and Round Like the Sun is the "self-portrait." How do children who cannot see express their own faces? In these pages, visually impaired children carefully explore their faces with their fingertips and then translate those sensations onto paper and into sculptural works. The process of arriving at a tender and precise understanding of oneself through touch is profoundly moving. With each original creation that emerges, readers encounter a new world they never knew—even though they look in the mirror every day. And through the remarkable thoughts and feelings the children share as they observe and express themselves, we are led to reconsider what "beauty" truly means. This is a picture book that reminds us: every one of us is a being who feels and expresses.