Wish Soup: A Celebration of Seollal

PreS-Gr 2–Sohee is excited for this Seollal, because she’ll be a big girl and too cool to hang out with her younger sister. While multiple traditions of the Lunar New Year holiday are discussed, Sohee focuses on tteokguk—a delicious soup that, according to her grandfather, makes you a year older for every bowl you eat. So Sohee must eat more than her sister! After preparing the soup, she can’t wait for her first bite; but she is called away to help set the table, invite everyone to eat, and then help her younger brother. When she finally returns, her younger sister has eaten her soup, and everyone else’s, too! Does that make her sister the big girl now? Luckily her mother has an extra bowl and reassures her that her actions, not the soup, are what make her a big girl. Humor is conveyed through Park’s watercolor illustrations, especially when Sohee’s young sister is depicted with a larger-than-life mouth, dumping in bowl after bowl of soup. Sohee and her family are Korean. Back matter includes a recipe for tteokguk.