Customer Reviews

Where on Earth is My Bagel?

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4 star:		(2)
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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.

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

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.

This is the story of Yum Yung in Korea. One day, for some unknown reason, he decides he would like a New York bagel. He send a pigeon with a message to New York to order one bagel to go. When the bagel does not show up right away, Yum Yung decides that he must search for it.

Yum Yung encounters a farmer, a fisherman, a beekeeper, and a baker while searching, but to no avail until suddenly everything comes together and the whole cast gets the chance to enjoy a fresh-baked bagel.

A truly fun story told in just the right way for young readers (repetitive language, etc.). After reading the book, go back to the start and you will notice that while Yum Tung is dreaming of his bagel, all the settings of the story are visible from his hilltop.

The only downside in the book is in the opening illustration that seems to place Korea in the vicinity of France or Spain (East and a little south of New York). Considering the obvious care in the rest of the illustrations I found this rather unusual. But this should not detract from this story of a young boy who has a dream and sets out to make it a reality.

Dear New York,
I would like to order one bagel to go.
Please send it to me as soon as possible.
Respectfully yours,
Yum Yung in Korea

Did Yum Yung dream of cream cheese and a bagel? Did he hear Central Park sparrows twitter about bagel crumbs? Why would he desire a NY bagel? Yum Yung lives in a part of Korea where there are many things, lilacs and waterfalls, streams of daring fish, but no New York bagels. But he knows he must have one. Yum Yung is obsessed with the idea of a bagel. He declares, "I want a bagel!" He sends a message from his Korean village via pigeon to New York City for someone to send him one. As he waits, he asks some locals for help: a farmer, fisherman, and a honeybee keeper. They know their trades and crafts well, but none of them have ever heard of the elusive, holed bagel. A bagel is not a round plow wheel, a salty round life saving ring, or a circle of honey bees. Hmmm, Yum Yung knows just where to get flour, sea salt, and honey. He runs for the Heavenly Bakery, and the pigeon returns from across the ocean, sans bagel, but with a recipe. The baker gets the required ingredients from the boy's new friends and they all make one huge bagel. Bagel shapes abound, including a full moon with a the hole in the middle.

Bagels. Yum. You know, for years I thought I disliked the tasty carbo-loaded concoctions simply because the only ones I'd ever eaten were of the gawdawful frozen variety. Maybe I would've come to bagels a little sooner in life had I had access to a book like "Where On Earth Is My Bagel?". Taking an essentially ridiculous idea (bagels are the stuff of visions and portent-laden dreams) the book is a nice little tale of a boy and his mini-quest for a good old-fashioned schmear.

Yum Yung, who has lived all his life in Korea, awakes from a mid-afternoon nap one day to declare with very little doubt in his mind, "I want a bagel!". This being rural Korea, New York bagels are (to say the least) a teensy bit scarce. This fact does not deter Yum Yung in the slightest, however. Without further ado he finds himself a pigeon and ties a note to its leg that amounts to a one-bagel order form. The pigeon takes off but no bagel returns to Yum Yung. He asks everyone he knows if they happened to get it by mistake. Sadly, the man working the wheat field hasn't. The fisherman working the salty sea hasn't. Even the woman tending the beehives hasn't. Yet to Yum Yung's delight, the pigeon returns with a bagel recipe (the note explains that bagels older than a day are not exactly edible) and the boy is able to get wheat, salt, and honey from the three people he bugged just the morning before. At the end of the story Yum Yung and his friends create an enormous bagel and sit down to a one-food-only feast of sorts.

The first two pages of the book show the Atlantic Ocean with New York and its tantalizing bagels on one page and Yum Yung, hands pressed dramatically to his chest, on the other. As another reviewer of this book pointed out, this shot is a bit askew, with Korea ending up where Spain could be. My only other grief with the book was that it did not include the recipe that Yum Yung received from New York. Books of this nature are especially good at getting you to crave the items they write of. How hard would it have been to include instructions for making your own? Not everyone lives in New York, after all.

Otherwise, the story's rather sweet. I give a lot of credit to the book for having such a bizarre premise. The pictures will not blow you away and the writing is somewhat pat, but this is a nice little tale that follows the rule of three and has a satisfying and delicious conclusion. A fine little tale for those kids already in love with bagels' chewy ways.

Yum Yung wants a bagel. A New York bagel, to be precise. How he got this idea, living in Korea (where there are no bagels that he knows of) is a bit of a mystery, but there it is.

So he decides to order in, but in the meantime it takes forever so he asks around. No surprise here, the people he asks are the same ones who has what he needs to MAKE a bagel at the end of the book.

Simple story, fun ending - it could only have been made better with the inclusion of a recipe.

Actually, it's probably vice-versa, I think my two sons came to bagels as a result of enjoying this book so much. It's a very charming story, and really wonderful illustrations (We have a few other Grace Lin titles as well). Some of the writing can be a little awkward for reading aloud (especially when you're exhaustedly trying to get your kids to go to sleep), but even still it has brought my family a lot of smiles (and a well-worn catch-phrase heard frequently around our house).