Birthday Soup Written by Grace Seo Chang, Illustrated by Jaime Kim, and with a recipe by David Chang (published 2024, Viking)
It’s Maia’s birthday! She is so excited to play games, eat food, and open presents. When she comes downstairs, she smells her umma (mother) cooking miyeok guk, a special soup also known as “birthday soup” in English. Maia’s mom explains that they eat miyeok guk on birthdays because it is full of nutrients that new moms need when their children are very young. Then, on their birthdays, children will eat miyeok guk to honor their mothers.
Birthday Soup is a celebration of Korean culture as well as the tradition of sharing recipes from generation to generation. The book shows young readers how fun sharing family time in the kitchen can be.
My favorite part of the book is when Maia tries the soup they’ve made: “She thinks about her family. Not only her mother, but all the mothers going back as far as she can imagine. She thinks about how eating the birthday soup bonds them together.”
Sharing food and recipes can help bond us to our family, both past and present. Even though our situations may be different, as shown in the book’s pictures, the experience of enjoying food is universal through time. This moment of mindfulness is also a contrast to the go-go-go culture of today.
There is another special moment where Maia considers if she wants to share the soup with her friends. I appreciate that Chang included this moment of tension; it can be hard to share foods that hold strong emotional and cultural importance with people who aren’t part of your culture.
Birthday Soup captures the joy of cooking and sharing food. This book teaches kids and adults alike about the tradition of eating miyeok guk and is sure to open a conversation about readers’ own birthday traditions. At the end of the book, Chang provides a glossary of Korean terms used in the book as well as a recipe from David Chang, the creator of the Momofuku restaurant group, as well as Grace’s mom’s recipe for miyeok guk. This is Grace Seo Chang’s first children’s book.
Elinor Serumgard is a poet, artist, and book reviewer from Issaquah, WA. Elinor graduated from Western Washington University in 2022 with a degree in Creative Writing. For more of their work, please see elinorserumgard.com
