Product Description

No one knows how the idea of a New York bagel popped into Yum Yung's head -- perhaps it was inspired by a dream, or by listening to sparrows' songs. Yum Yung lives in Korea where there are no New York bagels, and one day he just knows he has to have one. This timeless fable will make readers giggle with delight and satisfaction as Yum Yung, with the help of his friends, fulfills his bagel dream. The tale illustrates the power of perseverance.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #535190 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 32 pages

From School Library Journal
K-Gr 4-Where on earth did Yum Yung get the urge to have a bagel? He has no idea, but desperate for one, he sends a message from his Korean village via pigeon to New York City for someone to send him one. While he waits, he asks the farmer, the fisherman, and the honeybee keeper for help, but none of them have ever heard of a bagel. Just after Yum Yung reaches Oh's Heavenly Bakery, the bird returns without a bagel, but with the recipe. The baker gets the required ingredients from the boy's new friends and makes one huge bagel. "It was so heavenly he could even taste the curious hole in the middle." With charming gouache illustrations that evoke the intricate and colorful patterns found in Korean fabrics, this story mixes up cultures quite nicely. Bagel shapes abound, including a full moon with a cloud providing the hole in the middle. Pair this story with Ina Friedman's How My Parents Learned to Eat (Houghton, 1984) for a fun program on foods in different cultures.

Bina Williams, Bridgeport Public Library, CT

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

creating a bagel!
a delightfully simple book with a multi-cultural theme (korea and the usa)...about a little boy in korea wishing for a bagel (which he had never seen nor tasted) and how his community helped to create one and to share in its eating! very well-illustrated and written to be read over and over again.

Beautiful
This book contains all of the perfect elements that make a good children's book. It has imajination as the impossible happens. It has repition as the same conversation happens as the main character meets new people. Children just love this as they can predict what is going to happen and can follow along easier. It ends by using parts gleaned from the rest of the story binding it together beautifully. The wonderful solid structure of an absolutely perfect children's book. Beautiful

Beautifully illustrated book
Lots of vibrant colours and a variety of interesting things on each page that hold my 2 year old's interest as I read her the simple,whimsical, and fun story that lends itself to the expansion of the child's mind and imagination. One of the better children's books out there.