Our Story
Multicultural / Diverse / Picturebooks
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In 2016, we opened Koru Multicultural Diversity Picturebook Library in Jeju, a space created to help children and adults better understand the many cultures and ways of life that exist in our world. Through sharing books, art, and mindful learning together, we witnessed how these experiences could create small but meaningful changes and connections in people’s lives.
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This experience led Koru’s journey beyond Jeju, and in 2022 we opened a second space in Tucson, Arizona.
Koru is a space that explores the power of picturebooks, mindful learning, and creative expression to connect ourselves with other living beings. We offer a range of programs, from literacy, literature, and art classes rooted in picturebooks and literature to workshops and multicultural events. We strive to create a safe and inclusive space where children and adults can read, feel, create, imagine, and grow together.
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At Koru, we believe in the quiet but profound power of the stories carried by small voices. We nurture diverse voices and different ways of learning, and hope to connect with educators, parents, artists, and community builders who share these values.
Diverse Library
Many of the books in our library have been donated from around the world by family, friends, patrons, and complete strangers who learned of us through our social networks. Other books were procured in countries such as Korea, New Zealand, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, China, France, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and the USA. We have also received books from authors, artists, and educators.
Koru Library since 2016
"Among the many worlds that man did not receive as a gift from nature
but created out of his own mind, the world of books is the greatest...
Without the word, without the
writing of books, there is no history, there is no concept of humanity.
And if anyone wants to try to enclose
in a small space, in a single house or a single room,
the history of the human spirit and to make it his own,
he can only do this in the form of a collection of books."
Hermann Hesse