81. Mindy Kim and the Yummy Seaweed Business

Mindy Kim and the Yummy Seaweed Business (Mindy Kim #1) Lyla Lee. Illustrated by Dung Ho. 2020. 96 pages. [Source: Library]

First sentence: My name is Mindy Kim. I’m seven and a half years old. That’s old enough to ride a bike around our street, but not old enough to have my own puppy—or at least that’s what my dad said.
I don’t really agree with him, but our old apartment in California wasn’t big enough for a puppy anyway. I looked it up, and the experts on the Internet say that puppies need lots of room to run outdoors.
Now that we’ve moved into a house with a big backyard, we can really get a puppy! I just have to convince my dad that it’s a good idea first. So far, no such luck. Dad wants me to prove that I can be “responsible” enough for a puppy first… and then he’ll “consider” getting me one.

Premise/plot: This is the first in a new illustrated [early] chapter book. Mindy Kim and her newly widowed father have recently moved from California to Florida. Now she'll be starting a new school and having to make new friends. On the first day of school, Mindy Kim "sticks out" perhaps not in a good way. She's teased for her lunch. But then something happens: she dares her classmates to *try* her lunch, namely her dried seaweed. Mindy Kim is not surprised, but readers may be, to discover that her classmates seem to LOVE her seaweed snacks. So much so that they'll trade just about anything and everything to get more of her yummy seaweed. 

Meanwhile, in other news, Mindy Kim wants a PUPPY. She is convinced that a puppy not only would make her super-super-super happy but also cheer up her grieving father.

My thoughts: I liked this one. Mindy Kim is not an excitable heroine. She's not Clementine or Ramona or Junie B Jones. She isn't a trouble-maker or attention-seeker. She isn't horribly misunderstood. She's not weird, quirky, or eccentric. All this to say I found her a bit more relatable. The conflict in this one is a bit understated. (Which I don't mind in a book most of the time.)  

I thought Mindy was nice and sweet. I liked getting to know her. I think she's someone I would like to know better. I'm probably a thousand times more likely to seek out the second book in this series than the second book in the Eerie Elementary series.

© 2022 Becky Laney of Young Readers