Thus taunted by his friend, “When you grow up, you’ll be a stonemason, too, huh? Nothing but a stonemason!” the stonemason’s son betrays his discontent with reality by the way he wears his straw hat, obstinately pushed down to hide his face almost entirely. “When I grow up, I’ll be really really rich.” “I’ll be the sun and make you sweat like rain.” “I’ll be a cloud and hide the sun.” The argument between the stonemason’s son and his friend, which continues in this vein, is surely familiar to everyone. The boys in turn metamorphose into a rich man, a cloud, the sun, and the wind. As they turn each page of this volume, readers will realize that the altercation between the two young friends has become a song as well as a play that transcends the boundary between reality and fantasy, between negation and affirmation.
Towards the end of this fast-paced dispute, the stonemason’s son inadvertently retorts, “I’ll be a stonemason and chip you away with a chisel.” Like the fable “The Wind and the Sun,” where the wind and the sun vie with each other to strip a traveler of his cloak, The Stonemason’s Son hides a plain yet important truth. The stonemason’s son blurts out, “Oh, that’s not what I was going to say,” scratching his head. Next to him is his father, who has just finished work and smiles, wiping sweat from his brow. Shown from behind as he returns home with his son, the father is dependable and imposing at once, touching readers’ hearts. The young protagonist’s final affirmation, “When I grow up, I’ll be a stonemason,” will both move and delight readers.
Artist Kwon Moon Hee hopes that this work will lead children to see their fathers with a new eye. This is probably why the jangseung (village totem pole) that adorns the last page of this picture book resembles a loving father with his subtle smile. With blue and yellow tones, the illustrator vividly and heartwarmingly depicts the two boys, who cross and re-cross the line between reality and fantasy in a game of successive transformation. Indeed, each facial expression and gesture of the stonemason’s son and his friend is replete with humor and individuality, and the stonemason, who is drawn using simple lines, will leave readers with a lingering note of trustworthiness and happiness.