Stand Up, Yumi Chung!

This isn’t a book about food. Instead, it’s about middle grader Yumi Chung, who, in a case of mistaken identity, stumbles upon the opportunity to join a comedy camp taught by her favorite YouTuber.

Even so, I included it on this list because not only does Yumi’s family own a Korean barbeque restaurant, but the other kids at school even call her “Yu-MEAT” because of it. Comedy plus cooking? No wonder I had to include this gem!

Yumi is a girl trying to both please her Korean parents and live her own dream – that of attending comedy camp and becoming a stand-up comedian. I thought it was a fresh and funny take on the balancing act that many children of immigrants feel they must undertake. It made me think of the unspoken pressure I felt to study Science at university and how years later I was finally able to go back and study what interested me (creative writing!).

Yumi Chung may seem like a shy girl at school, but she actually dreams of becoming a comedian! Her parents want her to focus on her studies, but she’d rather work on perfecting her jokes. When an identity mix-up leads to her attending a comedy camp, she struggles to balance the expectations placed on her and the secrets she’s keeping inside. In the end, she finds the guts to stand up for what she wants and proves to everyone that she was meant to be a star! 

Perfect for embracing your inner comedy geek. The first thing that drew me to this book was that it’s about a young girl who wants to be a stand-up comedian. I’m a huge comedy geek, and I never thought a teen book would center on a main character with this desire, so I jumped at the chance to read it. But the book ends up being much more complex than that, as Yumi also must deal with the expectations of her family and culture, and she has to learn along the way how to balance desire with expectation. Really well… show more.