Another super-interesting post from my new friends over at SinoNK about Korean Children’s Literature and the cult of the leader in North Korea. (We looked at the first article about this, over on this page^^)

The article is interesting, but the pictures are stunning, such as this picture of a young revolutionary riding a winged horse (c’mon guys, all you needed was one lousy horn to make it a Unicorn!) in a traditional story ‘told’ by Kim Il-sung:

In fact that picture is described as:

A Winged Horse: Imagining the Past, Writing the Future | Re-released in multiple translations in 1989—and now available in animated DVD format!–A Winged Horse (날개달린 룡마) is introduced as “an illustrated book of a fairytale told by the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il-sung.”

Richardson notes that US president Barrack Obama and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd have both “written” children’s books, but Richardson also wryly notes:

This is one aspect of the culture wars that neither America, nor Australia, stands any chance of winning, as these images from the vastly more exciting works of Kim Jong-il attest.

And Richardson has the pictures to prove it:

 The literature includes grotesque foreigners:

Prepare to Samur-die!

And innocent chubby-cheeked Korean lads:

Is it just me, or do they have the Great Leader’s chubby cheeks?

The article is titled Leader as Teacher, Leader as Scribe: An Introduction to North Korean Children’s Literature and is totally work checking out, as is most of the content at SinoNK, though most of it is political and not literary.