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Welcoming Week is a special time of year. Communities across the country will come together to celebrate and raise awareness of immigrants, refugees and new Americans of all kinds. Whether it’s an event at your local art gallery or showing support on social media, the goal is to let anyone new to America know just how much they are valued and welcomed during what is likely a big transition.

And the biggest transitions are happening for the littlest people.

A new country, a new home, maybe even a new language — that would be enough for any kid — but a new school, too? That subject is exactly what author Anne Sibley O’Brien addresses in her book I’m New Here, new to the First Book Marketplace.

Marissa Wasseluk and Roxana Barillas of the First Book team had the pleasure of speaking with Anne about I’m New Here, the experiences of kids new to America, and what kids can do to help create a welcoming atmosphere.

Marissa: So, and I am sure you get this question all the time, but I’m curious — what inspired or motivated you to create I’m New Here?

It’s funny, it’s such a, “where would you start?” kind of question, but I don’t remember if anyone has ever asked me that point blank because I don’t recall ever putting together this answer before. Over the years of working in schools — especially working with Margy Burns Knight with our nonfiction books: Talking Walls; Who Belongs Here and other multi-racial, multicultural, global nonfiction books — I had a lot of encounters, a lot of discussions, a lot of experiences with immigrant students and I was very aware of the kinds of cross-cultural challenges that children and teachers can experience. For instance, Cambodian children show respect by keeping their eyes down and not looking in the eyes of an adult, especially a teacher. In Cambodian culture adults don’t ever touch children’s heads. So you can immediately imagine how those kinds of things would be quite challenging when a Cambodian child comes into a U.S. classroom and suddenly two of those cultural markers are not only gone, but the opposite is what they need to learn.

Somebody might put their hand on your head — it being out of concern and wanting to make a connection — or they might say “I need you to look at me now” and not recognize that that’s cultural inappropriate for a Cambodian child. So growing that kind of awareness of the challenges that immigrant children face — that was the original impetus for the book. Just collecting some of those stories and raising awareness of how many obstacles immigrant children face. From climate to traditions in speaking and in body language, to food, to learning a new language. Not just learning a new language in terms of how you speak and read and write, but also how you interact with people, how social norms work — they just face such enormous challenges. And there were originally six characters so it was trying to cover everything.

Marissa: The characters that are in the book, they cover a child from Guatemala, a child from Korea, and a child from Somalia — did you work with these specific immigrant communities when you were creating this book?

I spoke to individual experts, such as several Somali interpreters and family liaison experts who work for the multi-lingual, multicultural office of the Portland, ME public schools. So I had that kind of expert advice to respond to what I was writing. But the original ideas mostly came from my observations, my interactions with Somali students in the classrooms that I visited. And then with Korean students I met many, many Korean students here in the US and I had my own background to draw on there.

Marissa: Can you tell me a little bit more about these classrooms that you’ve visited? We talk with a lot of educators who work with Title I schools and they often talk about how reserved the English as a second language students can be. There is a silent phase that a lot of kids go through. Have you observed that and have you shared your book with any of these first generation immigrants?

It’s certainly been shared with many. I actually just shared it with a group of students in a summer school program — about seventy students from third to fifth grade who were from East African countries and some Middle Eastern countries. Most of the group were immigrants and I read the book and then we had a discussion about being new and being welcoming. Of all the student groups that I’ve worked with, they were actually the most effusive and had the most to share in that discussion about what it feels like to be new and what you can do to welcome someone.

Marissa: What were some of the suggestions?

They had all kinds of ideas about what you could say and do to make somebody feel like they were at home. You could take them around, go through a list and say, “this is your classroom, this is your teacher, this is your playground, this is your classmate.”

Roxana: You’re taking me back – a few years back I came to the United States when I was twelve from El Salvador, speaking no English. It hits close to home in terms of the importance of the work you are doing, not just for kids who may not always feel like they belong, but also for the kids who can actually help that process be an easier one.

That is wonderful to hear. I was just struck that they had more suggestions than any group I’d worked with, they could hardly be contained. They had so much they wanted to say and I think it’s very fresh in their minds what welcoming looks like and maybe what did or what didn’t happen for them. So the list that they wrote: welcome to my class, say hi, wave, smile, hello, say this is my classroom, these are my friends, do you want to become friends? these are my parents, this is my family, show them around, this is my chair, this is my house, this is your school, this is my teacher, can you read with me? how’s it going? I live here, where do you live? do you need help? welcome to my school.

It was the specificity of it that I just loved.

And they said what it felt like to be new. These kids went beyond with the details so they said: scared, nervous, confused, happy, sad, lonely, shy, surprised. Which is what I get with any group that I talk to — but then they wrote: don’t know how to write, don’t know everybody, don’t know what to do, don’t know what they’re saying, don’t know what to say, don’t think you fit in, embarrassed, don’t know how to read books, don’t know what to think, don’t know how to play games, don’t know how to respond, don’t know how to use the computer. So that is a really rich, concrete list.

Marissa: What about educators, how have educators responded to your book?

It’s been pretty phenomenal. The book is in its third printing and it’s just a year old. Actually, it went into its third print run in June. That is by far the fastest that any book of mine has taken off, so there seemed to really be a hunger. There are quite a number of books about an individual immigrant’s story, but I think what people are responding to, what they found useful, is that this book is different because it’s a concept book about the experience of being new and being welcoming, and in that way it works. A particular story can make a deep connection even if your experience is quite different, you recognize things that are similar. But to have one book that outlines what the experience is like, it is very good for discussions. I’ve done more teacher conferences and appearances, especially in the TESOL community, than I did before. Normally I do a lot of schools where I talk to students, but in the past year the majority of my appearances have been for teacher conferences.

Marissa: Have any of them come up to you and told you how it’s resonated with them? Have you met any educators who are immigrants themselves?

Yes, definitely! The TESOL community is full of people who have immigrant backgrounds. I shouldn’t say full, but there is quite a healthy percentage of the TESOL community who come from that background themselves. Partly because schools often recruit someone who’s bilingual, so you tend to get a lot of wonderful richness of people’s life experiences. They might be second generation or they might not have come as a child but they definitely make a strong connection to children who have that experience. I remember, in particular, some very moving statements that people made standing in line waiting to have a book signed. Talking about how it was “their story” or people talking about and being reminded of their own students. When I talked about the book they were in tears thinking about their own students.

Marissa: Ideally, how would you like to see your book being used in a classroom or a child’s home?

I think I see it in two ways. First, for a child who has just arrived and who is in a situation where things are strange; to be able to recognize themselves and see that their experience is reflected in something that makes them feel less lonely and that there is hope. Many, many people have gone through this experience and it can be so difficult but you can get through.

And to the children who are not recent immigrants, who have been part of a community for generations; that it would spark empathy for children,  for them to imagine what it would be like if they had that experience. Starting with that universal experience of somehow being new somewhere and to recognize, “oh, I remember what that felt like” and imagine if it was not only a new school, but a new country and a new language and a new culture and new food and new religions and on and on and on. Particularly for them to imagine what they could do, concretely, to examine what the new children are doing and to see how hard they are working, the effort that they are making. And also how their classmates are responding so that the outcome is the whole group building a community together.

To learn more about I’m New Here and Anne’s perspective, watch and listen as she discusses the book and her insights into the experiences of immigrant children.

The post Welcoming Week: Q&A with Author Anne Sibley O’Brien appeared first on First Book Blog.

As I was sitting in the Philadelphia airport, waiting to fly home from Midwinter 2014, I checked my email to find something rather startling: an invitation to be the keynote speaker at a symposium on library services for children and teens sponsored by the National Library for Children and Young Adults (NLCY) in South Korea. According to the email, my book Young Adults Deserve the Best: YALSA’s Competencies in Action had been translated into Korean and distributed to libraries in Korea, and they wanted me to come to the symposium and share my “experience and expertise in youth library services”—all expenses paid! 

The 8^th International Symposium on Library Services for Children and Young Adults was held on June 19-20, in Byeonsan, South Korea. I left San Francisco on Monday morning, June 16, and arrived at Incheon Airport, near Seoul, on Tuesday afternoon, June 17, after a 12-hour flight and a 16-hour time difference. At Incheon, I was greeted by my hosts and we met up with two of the other international speakers, Carolynn Rankin from England and Wiebke Dalhoff from Germany, whose flights were arriving at about the same time. Later that day, we met the other international guests: Kate McDowell, from the University of Illinois iSchool; Sazali Pakpong and Huey Bin Heng, from Singapore; and Inci Önal, from Turkey. 

For the first two days, we stayed in Seoul, where we visited the National Library of Korea as well as the National Library for Children and Young Adults. These libraries indicate that South Korea is deeply invested both in preserving the country’s cultural heritage and in using the most modern techniques possible to do so. Their digital library was quite impressive. The NLCY contained a wonderful display of artifacts from Korean children’s authors.

In addition to the tours, I had the opportunity to meet two print journalists, who interviewed me for the Segye Times and the Seoul Economic Daily. I was amused to find that Korean journalists had the same concerns American journalists: they wanted me to talk about whether smartphones were causing teens to read less! While in Seoul, we also had the opportunity to have some tourist experiences, including visiting the Gyeonbokgung Palace and Insadong, a market street. Plus we had some wonderful Korean food! Then we moved to Byeonsan, a three-hour drive south, to the seaside resort complex where the actual symposium was held. Each year, the Symposium is held in a different part of the country, to encourage local participation. The Symposium’s theme was “Reading Towards a Broader World.” In addition to the international speakers, all of whom presented in English, several Korean librarians presented sessions. Simultaneous translation was provided in both English and Korean. Topics included:

• A program to train grandmothers to read to children
• An historical overview of picture books
• A program for providing books to “alienated” teens
• An early literacy program in England
• A program to provide literacy and literature apps on iPads for children in an underserved neighborhood
• An online community of children and young adults in Singapore
• Cooperative programs for reading development in Germany

About 250 librarians attended the Symposium. For my keynote speech, I talked about YALSA’s Competencies for Librarians Serving Youth, but I focused on the first competency area, Leadership and Professionalism. In particular, I described the ways in which young adult librarians need to understand the needs of their managers in order to effect real change. Those of you who follow this blog will recognize that I took a similar approach last year in the series of posts I wrote on What Your Manager Wishes You Knew. In addition to the keynote, I was asked to prepare a session speech on one of the areas covered by the symposium’s theme. I chose the topic “Engaging Young Adults in Reading” and took the opportunity to highlight some successful reading programs for teens. For this presentation, I drew heavily from my YALSA colleagues. Among others, I shared the details of:

• Dawn Abron’s MAE-winning “Book Concert” program
• Kristin Pelfrey’s MAE-winning “Revolution” program
• Sharon Grover and Laurie Bartz’s “Book Club Formerly Known as Printz”
• Stacy Katz’s “Divergent Book Club”

I was pleased to be able to share these examples of engaging teens in reading, especially since most of the other speakers focused more on topics related to children. Going to Korea was a wonderful experience. The NLCY were outstanding hosts and meeting the other international presenters broadened my library network. It was fascinating to talk with library folk from around the world and discover the similarities and differences in our experiences. The Korean librarians were eager to learn from the best that the rest of the world has to offer. In 2015, the NLCY will host the 9^th Annual Symposium. The call for papers will go out in late 2014 or early 2015, and I would encourage YALSA members to consider submitting proposals. IFLA usually posts the call for papers, and I will link to the information on the YALSA blog as well.

Review:

I loved this book!  Gilded is a fun fantasy based on Korean mythology, and it has a ton of action, death-defying fight scenes, and even a little romance.  Protagonist Jae Hwa Lee is not a shrinking violet; she is out there giving back as well as she gets.  I think I enjoyed the book so much because Jae Hwa doesn’t wait for a guy to save her (though one does help her throughout her adventures), and because it takes place in South Korea.  There aren’t enough books with Asian settings, so I am eager to try each one that I discover. The fact that I had such a great time reading this is like winning the lottery.

After moving to Seoul with her father, Jae Hwa discovers, much to her dismay, that her family is cursed.  Descended from Princess Yuhwa, the oldest daughter of each generation has been stalked, wooed, and killed by Haemosu, a Korean demigod.  He is still smarting after Princess Yuhwa’s rejection, and he won’t rest until he has his revenge.  That, unfortunately for Jae Hwa, means that she and everyone she loves is in grave danger of being abducted by Haemosu and trapped in his otherworldly kingdom. 

Jae Hwa is a black belt, as well as a skilled archer.  It’s a good thing she is, because she needs every advantage if she’s going to escape from Haemosu’s clutches.  She’s also suffering from a lot of pent up angry.  Since her mother’s death, things just haven’t gone right for her.  Her father works all he time, and how she’s been uprooted from her home and her friends.  She doesn’t feel like she fits into her new surroundings, and she just wants to go back home.

Then her grandfather tells her that the only way to save herself and her new friends is to leave the country, so she begs for her father to send her back to the States.  He flatly refuses, and tells her that her grandfather has lost his mind and believes in fairy tales ever since the disappearance of his sister, Sun.  When she meets her aunt, Eun, her father forbids his sister from discussing the crazy story fabricated by their father about the disappearance.  Wow! Talk about being in denial!  Jae Hwa’s father would have saved everyone so much heartache if he had just opened his mind – as well as his eyes- and accepted that things just weren’t right with their family.

Of course Eun ignores the order, and begins to teach Jae Hwa how to defend herself from Haemosu.  She is warned to never let him touch her, because that will put her under his power.  While on a school ski trip, the unthinkable happens, and Jae Hwa is taken by Haemosu to his kingdom.  Only her stubbornness saves her from getting stuck there and being Haemosu’s latest trophy bride.  As they continue to battle, Jae Hwa’s learns that she has powers of her own, and she is going to go down fighting.

Jae Hwa’s only challenge is not being whisked away by a mythical demigod; she must also train to protect herself, while keeping up with massive amounts of homework.  Good luck trying to have normal friendships, too!  With spiritual beings constantly tampering with her life, she just doesn’t have time to hang out and go shopping or catch the latest movie releases.  And that cute boy in her class?  Forget that!  How can she possibly concentrate on dating someone when all she wants is to go back to LA?  Oh, yeah – and stay alive!

Gilded is like a Korean comic in prose.  Jae Hwa faces one challenge after another, all while trying to do what’s best for her family and friends.  She wonders if she should just give up and go to Haemosu, but then she realizes that the deadly cycle of the curse will continue, and more helpless girls will meet their doom in Haemosu’s kingdom.  I didn’t like her at first, but as she begins to find herself, and feel comfortable in her own skin, she becomes a very likeable young woman.  She is tasked with an impossible job, and as Haemosu keeps getting the best of her, she despairs at ever breaking the curse.  She makes some really dumb decisions, but with so many lives at stake, it’s easy to forgive her for not always displaying good judgment.

If you enjoy fantasy or stories based on mythology, chances are you will also enjoy Gilded.  The setting and unrelenting action scenes made this book for me. 

YA Fantasy

Release date: Mar. 1, 2014

A Korean god. An ancient curse. Can she escape becoming GILDED?

A girl with a black belt and a deadly proclivity with steel-tipped arrows discovers an ancient Korean god has been kidnapping the first-born daughters of her family for generations. And she’s next.

Sixteen-year-old Jae Hwa Lee is a Korean-American girl with a black belt, a deadly proclivity with steel-tipped arrows, and a chip on her shoulder the size of Korea itself. When her widowed dad uproots her to Seoul from her home in L.A., Jae thinks her biggest challenges will be fitting in to a new school and dealing with her dismissive Korean grandfather. Then she discovers that a Korean demi-god has been stealing the soul of the oldest daughter of each generation in her family for centuries. And she’s next.                                       

But that’s not Jae’s only problem.

There’s also Marc. Irresistible and charming, Marc threatens to break the barriers around Jae’s heart. As the two grow closer, Jae must decide if she can trust him. But Marc has a secret of his own — one that could help Jae overturn the curse on her family for good. It turns out that Jae’s been wrong about a lot of things: her grandfather is her greatest ally, even the tough girl can fall in love, and Korea might just be the home she’s always been looking for.

Hardcover: 978-1477847015

Paperback: 978-1477810972

Ebook: ASIN: B00FN2KR3K

Audio: 978-1480589278

Available at Amazon, BAM, IndieBound and Barnes and Noble

“An amazing contemporary fantasy that explores the vast legends of Korea, this richly detailed novel kept me turning the pages well into the night. Jae Hwa starts off as a strong character and ends as a noble one, using both her brains and her brawn to win the day–she’s exactly the kind of girl YA literature needs.”

~from Beth Revis, NY Times Bestselling author of Across the Universe series

“Farley brings South Korea’s fascinating culture and mythology into vivid detail in this shining debut, and Jae is a compelling heroine. An exotic, thrilling read, GILDED had me utterly entranced!” 

~from Jessica Khoury, author of ORIGIN and VITRO

Online Presence

Website: ChristinaFarley.com

Twitter: @ChristinaFarley

YouTube: www.youtube.com/chocolateinspired

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ChristinaFarleyAuthor

Tumblr: http://christinafarley.tumblr.com/

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/book/show/16173250-gilded

CHRISTINA FARLEY, author of Gilded was born and raised in upstate New York. As a child, she loved to explore, which later inspired her to jump on a plane and travel the world. She taught at international schools in Asia for ten years, eight of which were in the mysterious and beautiful city of Seoul, Korea that became the setting of Gilded. Currently she lives in Clermont, FL with her husband and two sons—that is until the travel itch whisks her off to a new unknown. Gilded is her first novel. For more details, check out her website at www.christinafarley.com. Christina holds a master’s degree in education and has taught for eighteen years. She is represented by Jeff Ourvan of Jennifer Lyons Literary.

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By Joseph M. Siracusa

Any discussion of North Korea’s nuclear program should begin with an understanding of the limited information available regarding its development. North Korea has been very effective in denying external observers any significant information on its nuclear program. As a result, the outside world has had little direct evidence of the North Korean efforts and has mainly relied on indirect inferences, leaving substantial uncertainties.

Moreover, because its nuclear weapons program wasn’t self-contained, it has been especially difficult to determine how much external assistance arrived and from where, and to assess the program’s overall sophistication.

That said, what is known is that Pyongyang has tested three nuclear devices: in 2006, 2009, and, of course most recently, on 12 February 2013. They have all had varying degrees of success, and North Korea has put considerable effort into developing and testing missiles as possible delivery vehicles.

February’s detonation of a “smaller and light” nuclear device — presumably, part of the plan to build a small atomic weapon to mount on a long-range missile — was the first test carried out by Kim Jong Eun, the young, third-generation leader, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. And while it always intriguing to speculate on who is running the show in North Korea, the finger generallyseems to point to the military.

Many foreign observers have come to believe the otherwise desperate, hungry population (and failing regime?) that make up North Korea’s secretive police state is best symbolized by its nuclear and missile programs. Which gives rise to the basic question: what, then, is Pyongyang’s motivation for its nuclear and missile programs? Is it, as Victor Cha once asked, for swords, shields, or badges?

In other words, are the programs intended to provide offensive weapons, defensive weapons, or symbols of status? In spite of prolonged diplomatic negotiations with Pyongyang officials over the past two decades, the question of motivation remains elusive.

Pyongyang’s interest in obtaining nuclear weaponry, beginning around the mid-1950s, has apparently stemmed in part from what it perceived as the US’s nuclear threats and concerns about the nuclear umbrella that protects South Korea. These threats, in turn, have pervaded North Korean strategic thought and action since the Korean War.

These actions may be gauged as offensive or defensive, but Pyongyang officials were at one point fearful of South Korea’s nuclear ambitions and later uncertain about the US emphasis on tactical nuclear weapons and its nuclear “first use” policy in defense of the South. These nuclear-armed additions included 280mm artillery shells, rockets, cruise missiles, and mines.

Against this backdrop, all of North Korea’s nuclear activities tend to focus on a single goal: preservation of the regime. Possessing nuclear weapons would diminish the US’s threat to the nation’s independence, but it could also reduce Pyongyang’s dependence upon China for its security.

North Korean officials, too, may feel that a small nuclear force offers some insurance against South Korea’s dynamic economic growth and its eventual conventional military superiority.

Pyongyang undoubtedly views its burgeoning nuclear arsenal as a symbol of the regime’s legitimacy and status, which would assist in keeping the Stalinist dynasty in power. Additionally enhanced status would, of course, assist in gaining diplomatic leverage.

Although the North Koreans have boasted about their nuclear deterrent’s ability to hold the US and it allies at bay, it is fairly clear that North Korea has vastly overstated its ability to strike, in part because of the limited amount of fissile material available to Pyongyang and also because of its inability to field a credible delivery option for its nuclear weapons.

The North Koreans have launched long-range ballistic missiles in 1998, 2006, 2009, and 2012, with limited success. By comparison, the US test fires its new missiles scores of times to ensure that they are operationally effective. North Korea would need many more tests of all the systems, independently and together, at a much higher rate than one every few years, to have confidence the missile would even leave the launch pad, let alone approach a target with sufficient accuracy to destroy it.

This was dramatically demonstrated on 13 April 2012, by the failure of the much-hyped effort to employ a three-stage missile, which would send a satellite into space. If the missile was, as Washington and Tokyo believed, a disguised test of an ICBM, the fact that it crashed into the sea shortly after launch illustrated that North Korea’s development and testing of missiles as possible delivery vehicles had miles to go.

Joseph M. Siracusa is Professor in Human Security and International Diplomacy and Associate Dean of International Studies, at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. Among his numerous books are included: Nuclear Weapons: A Very Short Introduction (2008) and A Global History of the Nuclear Arms Race: Weapons, Strategy, and Politics, 2 vols., with Richard Dean Burns (2013).

The Very Short Introductions (VSI) series combines a small format with authoritative analysis and big ideas for hundreds of topic areas. Written by our expert authors, these books can change the way you think about the things that interest you and are the perfect introduction to subjects you previously knew nothing about. Grow your knowledge with OUPblog and the VSI series every Friday!

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Image credit: North Korea Theater Missile Threats, By Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS.) Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The post North Korea and the bomb appeared first on OUPblog.

By Alice Northover

While I already gave my opinion of the best OUPblog posts of the year, it’s only fair to see what you the reader decided. Here’s our top ten posts according to the number of pageviews they received.

(10) “Olympic confusion in North and South Korea flag mix-up” by Jasper Becker

(9) “Five GIFers for the serious-minded” by Alice Northover

(8) “Seduction by contract: do we understand the documents we sign?” by Oren Bar-Gill

(7) ““Remember, remember the fifth of November”” by Daniel Swift

(6) “Puzzling heritage: The verb ‘fart’” by Anatoly Liberman

(5) “The seven myths of mass murder” by J. Reid Meloy, Ph.D.

(4) “Oh Dude, you are so welcome” by Anatoly Liberman

(3) “How New York Beat Crime” by Franklin E. Zimring

(2) “Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year 2012: ‘to GIF’” by Katherine Martin

And the number one blog post of the year is…

(1) “SciWhys: Why do we eat food?” by Jonathan Crowe

And I thought it would be interesting to note that our eleventh most popular blog post of 2012 is actually from 2009. People still enjoy arguing about unfriending.

Alice Northover joined Oxford University Press as Social Media Manager in January 2012. She is editor of the OUPblog, constant tweeter @OUPAcademic, daily Facebooker at Oxford Academic, and Google Plus updater of Oxford Academic, amongst other things. You can learn more about her bizarre habits on the blog.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Top ten OUPblog posts of 2012 by the numbers appeared first on OUPblog.

The Korean Cinderella

A lush Korean version of the story of Cinderella....

To honor her birth, a pear tree is planted and the newborn baby is named Pear. She is beautiful and loved by her elderly mother and father. When Pear's mother dies, her father remarries a woman with a daughter the same age as Pear. Beautiful Pear's stepmother is jealous of her stepdaughter's beauty and requires her to perform many impossible chores, while her own daughter, Peony watches.

With the help of magical creatures (frog, sparrow, and black oxen) Pear successfully completes each chore and is able to attend the festival. On the way to the festival she loses her shoe. The magistrate sees the beautiful Pear and calls out to her. Believing he is yelling at her, she runs away without her shoe. At the festival the magistrate looks for the girl without the shoe...

If you liked this, try:
The Irish Cinderlad
The Rough Faced Girl
Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters
Lon Po Po
The Golden Sandal

The Korean studio responsible for the animation production of The Legend of Korra is Studio Mir. The young studio was launched by Jae Myung Yoo, who was an animation director on Avatar: The Last Airbender. The studio’s other recent projects include season four of The Boondocks and an animated sequence in the recent live-action film Think Like a Man. Historically, Korean service studios have been content to remain anonymous, but Studio MIR represents the new young breed of foreign animation studios that make an effort to connect with the public and interact with fans. They have an active Facebook fan page, and offer glimpses inside their studio, such as in the video above. MIR has plenty of reason to be proud of their work on Korra since they also did some of the show’s pre-production work, in addition to the animation production.

They’re also posting small samples of pencil animation, like this Korra scene by key animation director Jung Hye Young…

and this piece by key animation director In Seung Choi…

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Jae Myung Yoo, Korea, Studio MIR, The Boondocks, The Legend of Korra, Think Like a Man

Seoul Sessions is a well-made mini-doc series by Creative Control about animation director LeSean Thomas (The Boondocks, The Legend of Korra, Black Dynamite: The Animated Series), who moved to Seoul, Korea to oversee the production of the shows he’s directing. Lots of American animators make the move to Korea at some point or another in their careers, but it’s unlikely that anyone has done it with as much style as LeSean. The first episode is above; next installment will be released end of June.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Korea, LeSean Thomas, Seoul

• Seokguram grotto- From the temple, take a bus trip up the mountain. On a clear day you can see the ocean.
• Bulguksa temple- This Buddhist temple was built in 548 and then redesigned in the 8th century. It's really striking with it's archetecture and design.
• Yangdong Folk Village
• Kyongju is also where the Hwarang warriors were trained during the Silla era.
• Kyongju National Park- excellent hiking the trails
• 9 Comments on Exotic Destinations- Kyongju, Korea, last added: 3/4/2012