Book 4: Chewy Noh and the Legends of Spring
You’ve never heard of Chewy Noh? Well, at first, when he came, we thought nothing of him. He did well on tests, but so what? Even after his mom got sick, nobody paid attention. That is until the great gym fire.
Afterwards, no one could say for sure it was because of Chewy, but we all thought it. And then kids started getting sick. And the school bully went missing. And finally, a body turned up in his house—his mom’s! The strangest thing of all was he was nowhere to be found.
Some say he ran off. Others say he still wanders the night. Either way, for the past fifteen years, his house has sat silent…until now.
So if something strange moans beneath your bed or a shadow slinks out of your closet, don’t go looking. It could just be the legend of Chewy Noh—back for revenge!
(Due out the summer of 2016)
The Title
This title, like all my titles, is in reference to other things within the book. As any reader of the third book knows, Chewy’s mom changed his name like certain Koreans do in order to secure a better future. Unfortunately, Chewy got stuck with Bo-mi, which is similar in sound to the Korean word for ‘Spring.’
On top of that, as Chewy navigates through this strange, new time–fifteen years into the future–he begins to see he’s not alone. In fact, a very famous Korean legend is right there along side him, tracking his every move. What makes it worse, is it’s not even the legend he knows.
And finally, with Chewy’s abrupt disappearance from fifteen years earlier, his old neighborhood has nothing to do but speculate on what actually happened in Chewy’s old house before he was gone. In this way, this book further carries the ‘rumor’ theme from the prior books and distorts it in a new way, as rumor gives way to legend, and the whole town concocts a different way of looking at things.
The Dedication
To Clint
This is a personal dedication (what one’s aren’t?) dealing with my childhood best friend who Chewy’s best friend is named after. Though Clint in the story shares more than just his namesake–the fear of water and leg braces, not to mention super blonde, practically white hair–in this story, another character personifies my childhood friend: Tom
In the book, it is loosely hinted at what fifteen years into the future has caused to happen to Tom. Losing everything he cares about, he doesn’t know what to do–and in a chapter written but ultimately cut from the book, we see what Tom decides to do about it. In this way, it echoes my friend’s choices and the sad circumstances I learned regarding him. Sometimes, we all need a little time traveling powers.
After Note
There hasn’t been an after note with my other books, but as the dedication was given to my old friend, I still felt the whole sub-content of the book had to be addressed. There was a reason for me bringing Chewy fifteen years into the future, and it wasn’t just to make a crazy story. I’ve reprinted the after note below to clarify.
In this book, Chewy Noh goes fifteen years into the future, landing roughly around the year 2030.
I am no futurologist. I don’t try to even guess what new gadgets or new problems the world might have in the next decade or two. It is far too hard, and too many before me have gotten things so utterly wrong it’s embarrassing. But that date is, nonetheless, important.
By that time, most every unreleased POW in North Korea will have died. They will have fought for their country, been captured, and then spent the next eighty to ninety years in another country, living like a slave. They will have spent those years as outsiders, mistreated and under appreciated. When they die, no one will know, and even worse, care. They will have been forgotten, and for me, that is the part of their story that no matter how much I know it I can never for a second believe or understand.
The Cover
I am unbelievably happy with this cover for many reason. As always it hints at one particular event in the book as well as new stories and myths the book uncovers. Secondly, it is the first cover to be fully wrap around. I hope I can convince my brother to go back and do the same for the prior ones because it does make the book look a thousand times better.
Tim Learn 