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I’ve Always Loved Retellings: A Guest Post by Axie Oh

By Axie Oh / May 12, 2025 at 12:01 am

This atmospheric reimagining of a Korean folktale follows Mina on a heroic journey through the Spirit Realm to appease the Sea God and bring her village peace once and for all. Read on for an exclusive essay from Our Monthly Pick author Axie Oh on writing The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea.

Paperback $12.99

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea

By Axie Oh

In Stock Online

Paperback $12.99

Axie Oh’s The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is an enthralling retelling of a classic Korean folktale, perfect for fans of Wintersong, Uprooted, and Miyazaki’s Spirited Away.

I’ve always loved retellings. Some of my favorites growing up included “Beauty” by Robin McKinley, “Ella Enchanted” by Gail Carson Levine, and “The Forestwife” by Theresa Tomlinson. I became a reader because of these novels, devouring them first from the library, then receiving my own copies to read again and again. When it came to write my own retelling, I wanted to write a story in the same tradition but drawing from my Korean heritage. Instead of a red rose, glass slippers, or an English forest, The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea features magpies, lotus flowers, and the East Sea.

The folktale from which I drew the most inspiration was one called “The Tale of Shim Cheong”. In the story, the titular character, Shim Cheong, volunteers to sacrifice herself to the Sea God to save her father. The first time I ever came across this story was through a chapter book I owned as a child called Sim Chung and the River Dragon: A Folktale from Korea that featured a girl on the cover wearing a hanbok. I fell in love with this story, and the cover, which is one of the reasons why I asked my publisher to feature a girl in a traditional Korean dress on the cover of The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea.

However, my story is less a retelling in the truest sense and more a re-imagining. It centers around an original character, Mina, while Shim Cheong and her father play supportive roles. I made this decision because I wanted more creative freedom, and so that Mina could have her own story. Instead of Shim Cheong, it is Mina who jumps into the sea and is whisked away to the Spirit Realm, where she discovers the Sea God is in fact a young man under a curse, a plot element which diverts dramatically from the original story. I then populated my story with creatures from Korean myths and legends, including Imugi—protodragons that can become dragons only after fighting in one thousand battles or living one thousand years—and gumiho, nine-tailed fox demons (though my fox demon only has two tails). Similar to Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Nights, I also had Mina tell the Sea God stories, which are all beloved Korean folktales that readers familiar with traditional Korean stories would recognize.

Writing this story was a truly joyous experience, and I’m so thrilled that even more readers will soon discover The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea.