Korean American children's books and Chuseok activities

The Korean American picture books kids return to are the ones that show a home they recognize: bibimbap on the table, a halmoni making kimchi, a hanbok saved for the holidays, a name that classmates stumble over. Below are ten picture books, all checked in a public library catalog, followed by activities and coloring page ideas for the two big family holidays, Chuseok and Seollal, with the traditions sourced from Korean organizations and the Library of Congress.

One note on approach: families keep these holidays in many ways, in Korea and in the United States. The sources describe common customs. Your family's version is the one to draw.

Korean American picture books for young kids

We left out books already in our grandparents list, which includes Giving Thanks With Halmoni, a Chuseok story. All of these are in the Seattle Public Library catalog:

Book	Author	What it is about
Bee-bim Bop!	Linda Sue Park	A child eager for a favorite meal helps with the shopping, cooking and setting the table
Tomorrow Is New Year's Day	Aram Kim	Mina shares the customs of Seollal, the Korean Lunar New Year, with her classmates
Wish Soup	Junghwa Park	Sohee helps her family prepare for the Lunar New Year
A Hanbok for Hana	Korena Di Roma Howley	Hana loves Chuseok, but it does not feel the same in her new small town
Seoul Food	Erin Russell	When her grandparents visit, Hana cooks a meal that represents both her Korean and Southern heritages
Slippery, Spicy, Tingly	Yangsook Choi	A grandmother's surprise visit involves a giant jar, a lot of cabbage and a deep hole in the backyard
The Name Jar	Yangsook Choi	After Unhei moves from Korea, her classmates help her decide what her name should be
Juna's Jar	Jane Bahk	When her best friend moves away, Juna's brother fills her kimchi jar with things that take her on nightly adventures; includes a glossary
Sunday Funday in Koreatown	Aram Kim	Yoomi's favorite Sunday in Koreatown goes wrong, and she tries new things
Danbi Leads the School Parade	Anna Kim	Danbi starts a new school in America and finds her way in

For the youngest listeners, start with the food books, Bee-bim Bop! and Sunday Funday in Koreatown, and talk about what your family cooks. For a child starting school, The Name Jar and Danbi Leads the School Parade open a good conversation about names and new places.

Chuseok activities for kids

VISITKOREA, the Korea Tourism Organization's English site, describes Chuseok as one of the biggest holidays in Korea, held on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month when the harvest moon is full. It is a time when families gather, share food and stories, and give thanks to their ancestors.

Ideas that come straight from those traditions:

• Make songpyeon, or pretend to. The same page describes songpyeon as half-moon rice cakes a little smaller than a golf ball, filled with sesame seeds, beans, red beans or chestnuts and steamed on pine needles. Toddlers can shape play dough half-moons; older kids can help pinch real ones closed.
• Look for the full moon. Check the night sky together on Chuseok and draw what you see.
• Learn ganggangsullae. VISITKOREA describes ganggangsullae as a circle dance in which women in hanbok join hands in a large circle and sing on Chuseok. Holding hands in a ring and walking in a circle is a dance any three-year-old can join.
• Talk about the people before us. VISITKOREA explains that families hold charye memorial services for ancestors and visit family graves, called seongmyo. For a small child, looking at photos of great-grandparents and saying their names is a gentle way in.

Seollal activities for kids

The Library of Congress describes the Korean Lunar New Year, Seollal, in a post written partly from the author's own Korean American family: children perform sebae, a deep bow to their elders while wishing them good fortune in the new year, and elders often give money to children who bow. The same post describes tteokguk, rice cake soup with coin-shaped slices that is said to bring good fortune, and yut, a board game played by throwing four wooden sticks.

• Practice sebae a few days before, so it feels like a game rather than a performance.
• Make a paper yut board. Draw the board on a page, color it, and use four craft sticks with one side marked as the throwing sticks.
• Draw the tteokguk. A bowl with oval rice cake "coins" is an easy coloring page for small kids.

For more Lunar New Year ideas across cultures, see our Lunar New Year coloring pages. Chuseok shares its full moon with the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Vietnamese Tết Trung Thu, which have their own page in our Mid-Autumn Festival coloring pages.

Coloring page ideas for Korean American families

Page	What to draw	Good for
Hanbok	A child in jeogori (jacket) and chima (skirt) or baji (trousers), the pieces VISITKOREA lists	Kids who like color and pattern
Songpyeon plate	Half-moon rice cakes on a bed of pine needles	Toddlers: simple shapes
Harvest moon	A big full moon over a house, with the family on the doorstep	Chuseok night
Sebae	A child bowing to a grandparent on a cushion	Seollal
Our table	Your family's own holiday food, whatever it is this year	The page they keep

A Korean word on each page helps if your family is raising kids with two languages. Our guide to bilingual coloring books has ideas for writing both.

A page with your own family in it

The most kept page is the one with your own family on it: halmoni at the stove, the kids in hanbok, the cousins at the yut board. Trace a holiday photo, or draw stick figures and let your child fill in the clothes.

Colorkin can also make a coloring page of your family from a photo, drafted with AI illustration tools and checked and finished by a person. We are making two Korean American coloring storybooks, one about Chuseok and one about making kimchi with halmoni. They are not on sale yet, but the free sample shows what a page of your own family looks like.

More holidays and heritage books are in our family and heritage guides, including Chinese American kids' books.

Questions parents ask