There’s nothing more nourishing or restorative than a bowl of homemade soup, especially when your mother makes it. 🙂

If we had a cool rainy day, if someone was feeling under the weather, or whenever she just felt like it, my mom made Korean miyeok-guk (seaweed soup). Though she cooked many delicious dishes, this soup was easily the most comforting and I always loved devouring my fair share.

But for all those years of eating miyeok-guk while growing up, I only recently learned about its cultural significance thanks to Hyewon Yum’s touching new picture book, A Spoonful of the Sea (Norton Young Readers, 2025).

I didn’t know that in Korea, miyeok-guk is a traditional birthday soup honoring and celebrating mothers, and that this custom dates back more than a thousand years! Referencing Jeju Island’s revered haenyeo (female free divers), Yum has lovingly created an inspiring tale of family history and heritage told through a matriarchal lens.

As the story opens, a girl is given a bowl of her mother’s seaweed soup on her birthday. Disappointed it’s not the strawberry cake or chocolate cupcakes she actually wanted, she pouts over the briny-smelling soup that “looks like sea water.” But while she’s stirring it, her mom explains why the soup is so special.

The girl learns she’s had this soup every birthday since she turned one, just as her mother had it every day for a month after she had given birth. Her grandma brought “the straightest, longest miyeok from Korea” to make the soup for her mom, just as the girl’s great-great grandma had made it after Grandma was born.

Then she hears that her great-great grandma was a haenyeo, a sea woman, just like many of her ancestors. The haenyeo dove into the sea without any protection, harvesting seaweed, shellfish and octopus. Sometimes they dove with their daughters or even while pregnant, always watchful and learning from the sea.

“Many mothers ago” a pregnant haenyeo noticed a mother whale eating seaweed after her calf was born, so she followed suit. Since seaweed soup had hastened her postpartum recovery and enhanced the health of her baby, she made the soup for her daughter when she had a baby, and so on. Ever since, nutrient-rich seaweed soup has been eaten to honor mothers and to celebrate new life.

After hearing her mom’s story, the girl takes a spoonful, and then another, of the “faraway sea.” In her bowl she can “almost see the mother whale, grandma, and great-grandma.” Now she likes that her birthday soup “smells like grandma’s town” and truly “tastes like a birthday.”

Yum’s soft, appealingly textured colored pencil and gouache illustrations beautifully capture the tender mother-daughter bond and provide telling details about life at home and at sea. A combination of full bleed spreads, fetching panels, sequenced spot illos and judicious use of scale makes for captivating page turns and will keep young eyes excited and engaged in the narrative.

As in Yum’s other picture books (Luli and the Language of Tea, Let’s Celebrate Korean New Year!), I’m taken with her ability to effectively convey various emotions with the simplest of lines. The girl’s initial dismay with her soup, as well as the pride and joy she feels at the end, are palpable and believably child-like. The girl’s birthday pictures from ages 1-4 are especially adorable.

Also love the succession of kitchen spreads showing mothers making soup for their daughters cradling their newborns. Though each generation has different cooking equipment and utensils, they’re all united by the love, caring, safety and comfort of a familiar place called home.

The ocean scenes with their lovely blue washes and seaweed greens feel calm and soothing. Kids will be fascinated by the divers harvesting underwater and impressed by their strength and resilience (how do they hold their breaths for so long?!). They’ll especially like the double page spread showing the mother whale with her tiny calf, and of course they’ll like the idea of a seaside village complete with whales and haenyeo right in the girl’s soup bowl.

Gently told with themes of female empowerment, harmony with nature, honoring traditions, familial bonds and continuity, A Spoonful of the Sea effortlessly spans generations, connecting past with present and mother with child, for a cozy, heartwarming, satisfying read.

I enjoyed learning about Korea’s haenyeo and this charming story brought back many fond memories. Even though my mom didn’t routinely make seaweed soup for my birthday, once she did bring “the straightest, longest miyeok” when she visited us in Virginia (she knew I missed her soup, which had clams in it instead of beef). Food was definitely her favorite way of expressing love for her family. 🙂

In her Author’s Note, Hyewon shares more information about haenyeo and miyeok-guk, as well as a couple of reference links. Hope you dive into this delectable story very soon!

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A SPOONFUL OF THE SEA
written and illustrated by Hyewon Yum
published by Norton Young Readers, September 2025
Picture Book for ages 4-8, 32pp.
**Starred Review** from Publishers Weekly

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*Interior spreads text and illustrations copyright © 2025 Hyewon Yum, published by Norton Young Readers. All rights reserved.

**Copyright © 2025 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.