A Spoonful of the Sea
by Hyewon Yum; illus. by the author
Primary    Norton    32 pp.
9/25    9781324053699    $18.99

On her birthday, a little Korean girl sulks when her mother serves miyeok-guk, or seaweed soup, instead of cake. But as her mother tells the story behind the dish—how mothers eat it for a month after every birth, how each generation of women makes it “just like her mother did,” and how a haenyeo (“sea woman,” or a Korean woman diver) once saw a whale who had just given birth eating seaweed—the soup transforms from something “slippery” and “smelling briny” into a living link to her ancestors and the sea that sustained them. Through sensory detail and rhythmic repetition, Yum’s tactile, tender language turns an ordinary meal into a story that threads through grandmothers and great-grandmothers, generations of sea women who dove unaided for “abalones, clams, octopus, and seaweed.” Blending colored pencil, gouache, and watercolor, the soft, textured illustrations radiate tranquil warmth, capturing the quiet intimacy between mother and child. By the end, when the girl finally takes a spoonful, readers feel the same warmth rising from the bowl—soup that “smells like grandma’s town” and “tastes like a birthday.” An author’s note enriches the story by connecting it to real Korean traditions, explaining the lives of haenyeo and the cultural meaning of miyeok-guk.

From the January/February 2026 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.