At the beginning of The House Before Falling into the Sea, we don’t know why large groups of people are fleeing their homes on foot, but they all seem to have one destination: a house at the tip of a rocky peninsula that juts out into a choppy sea. The eponymous “house before falling into the sea” is where a young girl named Kyung lives with her mother and father. As travel-weary families arrive to the family’s house with the remains of their belongings strapped on their backs in large, framed packs, Kyung is curious and friendly as her parents welcome the travelers and give them refuge; but she soon grows resentful as she has to share her food, sleeping quarters, and parents’ attention. She thinks of these people are nuisances and likens them to inanimate objects like stones.  

When a friendship with Sunhee, a refugee girl a few years her senior, develops, Kyung’s perspective broadens and she becomes more empathetic to the plight of others and her family’s unique role in providing these strangers a safe place. She sees the humanity and suffering in others and understands the depth of her parents' generosity in giving shelter to so many in their time of need. It is an emotionally powerful book about war and selfless acts of heroism, of helping strangers in their time of need.  

Hanna Cha’s illustrations are done using a variety of tools and techniques, including watercolor, sumi ink, colored pencils, Photoshop, and gouache paint. According to the Caldecott criteria, a “distinguished” book must, amongst other things, be “marked by excellence in quality,” “marked by conspicuous excellence or eminence” and be “individually distinct.”  

The illustrations in The House Before Falling into the Sea have many Caldecott-worthy qualities, and I want to draw attention to two of them: a nuanced visual language that pairs smartly with the book’s themes about humanity and togetherness, and an impressive ability to represent the landscape in a way that feels authentic and alive. These artistic feats, combined with the book’s sensitive manner of telling a story about self-sacrifice and generosity, makes the work as a whole Caldecott worthy. 

Let’s dive in! There are several themes that pervade the book, but the ones that stand out the most are the importance of sharing and generosity and humanizing the suffering of others. The text makes many references to rocks and stones. Kyung thinks the refugees look “like oval stones” from afar. They travel next to a wall composed of many small stones, which reinforces this message. When they arrive at her house, there is a hallway table with a stone statue (a suseok) in the foreground, Kyung cradles in her arms a fish-shaped stone she found by the sea. Meanwhile the “oval stone”–looking refugees are in the background, begging the question of whether they will be recognized for their humanity, or cast out of the house like stones. The imagery is reinforced in this way throughout the whole text; it’s never heavy-handed or overdone and heightens the emotional effect of reading the book.  

As Kyung and Sunhee’s friendship forms, there is a noticeable shift in the way the illustrations represent the two girls from solitary and alone to connected. Kyung had previously been a solitary girl, shown standing alone (there’s something sad and forlorn about her standing alone holding her toy rock!). She gradually gets closer to Sunhee as a friendship develops. Their hands touch as Kyung gives Sunhee her fish-shaped stone; soon after, they hold hands and walk to the sea, and sit side by side on the shore. Later, when the sirens blare, they hold hands and run for shelter, and Sunhee extends her arms to Kyung as they descend into the darkness of the bomb shelter.  

Readers can trace more of these threads through the entire text, and I won’t belabor the point by discussing each and every instance, but the book seems to be saying with its illustrations: it’s only when we come together and help one another that we can survive.  

The concluding message of the book shows Kyung and Sunhee as adults, walking and holding hands, while the graves of Kyung’s  parents are in the foreground, emphasizing that, while Kyung’s parents have passed, her friendship with Sunhee (and presumably her parents’ generous spirit) will live on. It’s probably one of the more touching moments in picture book illustrations this year.  

Lastly, let’s look at Cha’s gift for representing the landscape. Water is notoriously difficult to represent visually, and Cha’s illustrations excel in capturing the movement, depth, and mutability of the sea. Waves crash onto rocks, mist hovers in the distance over serene waters, and light reflects off the surface as the sun sets. The many hues of blue used for the ocean and the broad strokes used to capture the look and feel of waves contrast with the shorter strokes and honey colors used to portray fields of wheat. When sirens go off and the girls run through wheat fields to find shelter, the texture of the wheat becomes less defined and more chaotic; everything is a blur of golden color, while the loud sound of the sirens is represented as sharp lines coming out of the speakers on the top of the hill. All of this is contrasted with the darkness of the bomb shelter on the following page, which makes for quite an affecting experience for the reader. These pages stood out for their artistic merits alone; they heightened the experience of the book and captured the feeling of the sea and the girls’ panic.  

I could go on about this book, but I’ll leave it there. What about you? What did you notice about this book’s illustration work that seems Caldecott worthy?  

[Read The Horn Book Magazine's review of The House Before Falling into the Sea]