The Color of Earth - Kim Dong Hwa

Every year, the American Library Association reports hundreds of challenges to books in schools and libraries all over the United States, and ALA estimates that the number of unreported challenges is significantly higher. People continually try to take away readers’ power to decide what books are right for themselves or their children by bringing challenges to remove books from libraries. Sometimes those challenges result in books being removed from circulation —

the dreaded ban. Comic books, graphic novels, and manga are frequently challenged and banned.

When the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom released their list of the Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged  Books of 2011, the second-most challenged book on that list was The Color of Earth, a critically-acclaimed Korean manga, or comic book, series. In spite of numerous

positive reviews from Booklist, Publishers Weekly, The School Library Journal, and other outlets that praise the book as “richly literate and imaginative” (Booklist) and “a work of great humanity” (Publishers Weekly), the coming-of-age tale is challenged due to nudity, sexual content, and suitability for age group.

In the tradition of "My Antonia" and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", from the pen of the renowned Korean manwha creator Kim Dong Hwa, comes a trilogy about a girl coming of age, set in the vibrant, beautiful landscape of pastoral Korea.

1. "The Color of Earth": First love is never easy. Ehwa grows up helping her widowed mother run the local tavern, watching as their customers – both neighbors and strangers – look down on her mother for her single lifestyle. Their social status isolates Ehwa and her mother from the rest of the people in their quiet country village. But as she gets older and sees her mother fall in love again, Ehwa slowly begins to open up to the possibility of love in her life.

2. "The Color of Water": When Ehwa goes to the town festival, she meets a handsome young wrestler named Duksam who’s eager to catch her eye. After he wins the festival wrestling championship, he and Ehwa begin to meet, sneaking spare moments to be together. But a shadow falls on their romance when Master Cho sends Duksam away and asks for Ehwa’s hand in marriage himself It is then that Ehwa discovers the pain of heartbreak – and that love is always complicated.

3. "The Color of Heaven".

Its free to read online. Here's the link to Volume I of The Color of Earth.
Here to  all 30 chapters of the Trilogy