Janie Jaehyun Park Biography

Born 1987; Sheridan College, Oakville, Ontario, Canada, diploma in interpretive illustration, 2000.

Career

Illustrator, artist, and teacher of art in Korea and Canada. Clients include the Toronto Star, Toronto Globe & Mail, Chirp magazine, Rogers Media, the Owl Group, Korea-Froebel Co., Ltd., Lobster Press, and Ground-wood Books. Exhibitions: Sheridan College Illustration Graduate Show, Toronto, Ontario, 2000; Open City 2 Federal, Toronto, Ontario, 2002.

Honors Awards

Korean Publishing Illustrators' Association award of excellence, 1991 and 1994; Award of Excellence for Illustration from Applied Arts Magazine, 2000, for "Missing You"; finalist for Governor General's Literary Award and Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver Award, both 2002, both for The Tiger and the Dried Persimmon: A Korean Folk Tale.

Writings

(Re-teller; self-illustrated) The Tiger and the Dried Persimmon: A Korean Folk Tale, Douglas & McIntyre (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2002.

Sidelights

Janie Jaehyun Park began her illustrating career in her native Korea and has continued illustrating in Canada, where her The Tiger and the Dried Persimmon: A Korean Folk Tale was a finalist for the prestigious Governor General's Literary Award. Park's version of the folk tale is based on the story her grandmother told her as a

Janie Jaehyun Park

child. By dint of a misunderstanding, a hungry tiger is foiled by the thought that a dried persimmon must be the most fearsome of beasts. Out of sheer confusion, the tiger mistakes a human for the dried persimmon and runs away, never to threaten the village again. Booklist correspondent GraceAnn A. DeCandido called The Tiger and the Dried Persimmon "a sparkling incarnation of a Korean folk tale" and especially liked the way Park's illustrations turn the tiger into "a coiled calligraphic mass of fear."