Yong Kee's Wish

by Paul Anderson

A Korean boy has a special way to make a wish come true. He weaves a doll out of straw and makes his wish on it. Then, on New Year's Eve, he leaves the doll in the road. If someone carries it off, his wish is supposed to come true. Yong Kee knows what he wants: He wants a jiggy, a pack Koreans use to carry heavy loads. But will his wish come true? Will someone pick up his doll?

20 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Librarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw this book at a Habitat Restore of all places and read the description inside. I’m always looking for books to bring to Farmpark’s camps, and this seemed like a good choice. It qualified at the most basic level of being about farm life, but I wanted it more because it was about a different kind of farm life than the camp kids would be familiar with, Korean farm life.

The story explains well the different cultural norms and behaviors in the story, that a child reading it would understand even though they are different from the ones we talk about at the Farmpark. I can see it easily being used to discuss how different people around the world perform the same general tasks in different ways and even celebrate similar holidays in different ways.

And I am sure many of the children will be able to relate to Yong Lee’s desire to grow up and help his dad as well as make wishes!

Overall, I found it to touch on several key ideas I like to teach the kiddos, and hope it gets read quite a bit next summer.