★ Rights sold: Simplified Chinese.

★ An internationally recognized book. The International Youth Library in Munich chose 'The Tiger Has Returned' for its 2025 White Ravens list — the library's yearly selection of the world's most
notable children's and youth books, unveiled each autumn at the Frankfurt Book Fair. It carries a respected international seal of quality that speaks straight to acquiring editors and rights buyers.

★Nearly wordless, and easy to carry across languages. The tiger's thoughts run in a handful of spare lines; the rest is image and the overheard chatter of passers-by. There is very little text to
translate, and the visual comedy needs no translation at all.

★Funny on the surface, sharp underneath. The running gag — a living tiger taken for a statue, a trash can, a rug, a slide, a pair of pajamas — is genuinely laugh-out-loud, and quietly devastating the moment you catch its meaning. Humor keeps a serious subject light enough for the youngest readers.

★ Conservation and coexistence, without the lecture. Extinction, lost habitat, the ethics of the zoo, and the difference between loving an animal and making space for it are all here — carried entirely by story, never by a moral pinned on at the end.

★A hopeful, re-readable ending. The tiger doesn't merely escape; she returns, and brings new life with her. The final turn rewards a second reading and gives the book lasting emotional weight.

★Bold, graphic, seek-and-find art. Jo Myeong-hwa works in flat, saturated color and hand-printed texture — electric yellows against deep reds and teals — and hides her tiger among crowds of
tiger things, so every busy spread invites children to hunt for the real one.

★Comparable titles. For readers of The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr, where a tiger strolls into ordinary life, and Where's the Elephant? by Barroux, whose seek-and-find play becomes a gentle word about vanishing wild animals.

What if a tiger were still alive, somewhere in our country? The Tiger Has Returned opens on that quiet, wishful question — and then a hunter's shot rings out in the forest. One tiger falls, and with his last breath he tells his mate that she has to live. She runs, alone and secretly carrying their cubs, into a country certain that her kind belongs only to the past. All she wants is to find the safest, most
comfortable, most livable place there is. But wherever she goes, no one sees a living tiger. They see a statue to pose beside, a novelty trash can, a decoration on a school bus, a child's tiger pajamas, a fashionable animal rug, a brand-new playground slide, a painted mural, a shelf of tiger-print souvenirs. The most real tiger in the land passes through all of it unrecognized — because everyone already knows that real tigers are only in the zoo. And when she finally reaches the zoo, she discovers that the one place built for her kind is the least free of all.

Jo Myeong-hwa's tender, wry, and quietly pointed picture book is about a country that adores the idea of the tiger and has left no room for the animal itself.

Jo Myeong-hwa studied applied art at university and makes picture books out of a wish to share Korea's traditional beauty with children. Writing and illustrating her own work, she has created many books — among them Pounding Heart Mookjeong Field: Make the Ultimate Bibimbap; Princess Pyeonggang Lives in Palace Villa; Sixth Graders Are Kings; The Tofu Vendor; Little Bear Makes Red Bean Porridge; Reviving the Tiger King’s Appetite; and The Tiger's Tail.

The Tiger Has Returned is published by Bookgorae, a picture-book house that calls itself a playground where children and grown-ups who love books can play together.