Mindy Kim and the Yummy Seaweed Business review

The core of mankind’s disagreements can be summed up into those that like seaweed as a snack and those who don’t. I am firmly in the first camp and are offering it to our children every chance that we get and since there’s always some in the kitchen that’s quite often. Mindy Kim and the Yummy Seaweed Business by Lyla Lee is the first in a new children’s series that kids in first through fourth grade will enjoy for a number of reasons.

Mindy Kim, the title character is the new kid. She’s just relocated to Florida, there’s no Asian grocery store nearby, making friends at school is challenging, her dad isn’t happy and they’re still grieving the loss of her mother. Don’t let the last bit fool you; this is not a book on how to get over the death of a loved one. The book does not concentrate on that or use it as an emotional device that will attract or repel young readers. Instead, it makes Mindy Kim more relatable and a character that elementary school kids will understand, especially when the book establishes all of its characters.

The inside jacket sets up the book very well by saying that Mindy Kim simply wants three things that are not too uncommon for kids her age. She wants a puppy, a new best friend and for her dad to be happy again.  These are not unrealistic things for a seven and a half year old kid to want.

Set amongst all of these things is the entrepreneurial spirit of a young girl who gets teased for bringing seaweed snacks to the elementary lunch room. She knows they’re delicious. I know they’re delicious. It’s when she convinces one of the people at her table to try them that the seed of a business is planted. Everyone else at school has some vanilla cookie or lame cracker, but Mindy has something exotic.

As good things sometimes go too far, Mindy realizes that selling items in the lunch room doesn’t exactly make the teachers or staff happy. She also realizes that sudden success can make someone get a big head, which doesn’t endear her to kids who earnestly want to be her friend.

 Each chapter in Mindy Kim and the Yummy Seaweed Business is around six pages. Some of the longer chapters have illustrations by Dung Ho. What young readers will enjoy is that the chapters have real growth where they can easily follow along with Kim as she faces challenges and has to deal with them. These are things that they’re experiencing and need to know how to effective solve.

We tell our kids that they’ll get into trouble, won’t do as well as they would like or want to accomplish something within their peer groups. It’s how they get up from the lows as to how well they do. Kim has struggles, both emotionally and socially.

What our 8 year old enjoys about the book are the lengths of each chapter. They’re short enough for him to only read one or long enough to read a couple of them a night. The text is also such that he doesn’t need too much assistance reading the words. There are a couple words in each chapter that I’ll help him with, depending on his tolerance that night he’ll read one or a couple chapters.

The Mindy Kim series has room to grow. In addition to Asian or cultural angles, the books could take it’s comforting approach to any situation that seven through nine year old could be wrestling with. The second book, Mindy Kim and the Lunar New Year Parade and the third book Mindy Kim and the Birthday Puppy make it appear that she’ll at least accomplish the first thing that she wanted, which was a puppy. That, and seaweed snacks are really quite tasty.  

There are affiliate links in this post, because seaweed.