Giving Thanks with Halmoni: Celebrating Chuseok, the Korean Harvest Festival

Excitement is building for Chuseok, the biggest Korean holiday of the year, and Halmoni wants to share it with her granddaughter and her friends. With a dearth of picture books about Chuseok, this book should be a welcome addition to the literature about the celebration.

Su-Jin’s ＂halmoni＂ (grandmother in Korean) is excited for the Korean holiday of Chuseok. She is watching the moon grow larger each night. Celebrated on the day of the Harvest Moon, Chuseok is a time when her family will gather, give thanks, and share in a very special feast. It’s the biggest holiday of the year--often referred to as Korean Thanksgiving. Su-Jin is excited, too. She wants to share the holiday with her friends Maddy and Keisha, who are curious to learn all about it. So the three girls decide to help Halmoni get ready for the celebration. Traditional foods are prepared, gifts are wrapped in a special way, games are played, and customs like gratitude and remembering ancestors are honored. The friends learn how to wish each other a happy Chuseok in Korean, and they look forward to sharing the American traditions of Thanksgiving with Halmoni. Seeing images of Su-Jin’s Korean grandmother in her traditional hanbok and the Korean American granddaughter navigating both Korean and American cultures will be helpful to those learning, understanding, accepting, and embracing their Korean identity as well as feeling a greater sense of belonging in American culture. The authors tell a universal tale that will appeal to many young readers. The Thanksgiving holiday also provides a valuable point of comparison for appreciating this ancient Korean celebration.

Kathleen Choi once worked as a child actor on Sesame Street. She is currently managing editor of District Management Journal, a magazine for K-12 public education leaders. Choi has collaborated with her mother, Sook Nyul Choi, on her many books for children and young adults. A second-generation Korean American and a parent of two, Choi seeks to preserve knowledge and a connectedness to one’s heritage by keeping Korean traditions alive in her family. Kathleen Choi was born and raised in New York City and now lives in the Boston area. Sook Nyul Choi is the author of the award-winning Year of Impossible Goodbyes, an autobiographically based novel telling her dramatic escape from North Korea to South Korea in the aftermath of World War II. The first in a trilogy, the two subsequent volumes, Echoes of the White Giraffe and Gathering of Pearls, tell her story of defying odds to eventually win a scholarship and emigrate to the United States. In addition to her novels, she has written three children’s books: Halmoni and the Picnic, Yunmi and Halmoni’s Trip, and The Best Older Sister. Giving Thanks with Halmoni is her latest collaboration with her daughter, Kathleen. Sook Nyul Choi lives in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Il Sung Na is the author-illustrator of many books for children, including A Book of Sleep; Bird, Balloon, Bear; That’s My Carrot; and A Book of Babies, all of which received at least one starred review. He also illustrated Beautiful Noise, The Music of John Cage written by Lisa Rogers. The New York Times noted that Na ＂brings fresh energy to the familiar.＂ Originally from South Korea, Na studied illustration at Kingston University in London and now lives in Kansas City with his wife, where he spends time teaching illustration courses at the Kansas City Art Institute.