Korean Celebrations: Festivals , Holidays and Traditions by Tina Cho and illustrated by Farida Zaman is a colourful and informative picture book with some fun activities for children to do, too.
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We love learning about different celebrations around the world and we were pleased to receive a copy of Korean Celebrations from Tuttle Publishing for the children to read and review. They’ve been having fun with it!
It is interesting for the children to compare the holidays they celebrate with other cultures, and not just cultures overseas but also in their own community and circle of friends.
This book has a very bright colours and attracts the eye and invites you in to learn more.
Some of the different areas in this book are clothing, New Year’s Day, holiday foods, Hanguel Day, kites, Independence Day, Days of love (there’s more than just Valentine’s Day), and many more.
New Year’s is the big holiday in Korea, as it is and many other Eastern cultures. Traditional dress is explained, and this very beautiful, although not as elaborate as in some other cultures, which is also nice to see. Also included is a favourite New Year game (Yut-nori).
Tristan made a Yut-nori board and had fun playing the game of throwing sticks and moving around the board depending on how the sticks fall.
There’s Parents Day which includes instructions for a pretty origami carnation. A celebration of summer also has a paper craft for a Buchea (fan), that Kallista had fun making and designing.
It was interesting to see Thanksgiving Day, which is something that we do celebrate in my home country of Canada, but is not celebrated here in the UK. With this celebration comes a recipe for making half-moon rice cakes. We haven’t tried this activity yet, but I’m sure the kids would love to try it!
Have you ever wondered how the Korean alphabet works? Hanguel Day is all about celebrating the new alphabet that is common today. Korean is phonetic and you’ll see the alphabet and it’s pronunciation, as well as some short phrases to try in this sections.
Birthdays, of course, are always something to be celebrated; and some have more significance than others, as you will find out.
There are even some local festivals touched upon, such as the Ice Festival, which fascinates my children as we rarely have snow fall here along the coast of the Irish Sea.
This is a another wonderful book by Tuttle Publishing that we are happy to have on our bookshelf and share with you. My children enjoyed reading this book along with me during our daily read aloud.
We didn’t read it all at once as there is so much information within it, but rather a little at a time over several days. Then we talked about some of the festivals and which ones they would enjoy. Which ones they would like to experience? Which ones were the same or similar to ones here?
If this is the year you’d like your children to learn about Korea, then Korean Celebrations will be a great resource!
If you’re interested in purchasing Korean Celebrations, it’s available through:
- Tuttle Publishing
- Amazon
- Great bookstores near you
If you’d like to know more or would like to follow Tuttle Publishing, you can connect with them through their website, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest (and you can see our other Tuttle reviews here).
