Luna Picks a Lucky Dumpling

Luna Picks a Lucky Dumpling by Natasha Yim, illustrated by Violet Kim, from the Math Storytelling series.

Pub date: May 19, 2026

This is a cute book with a fun story with lovely colorful illustrations AND it also teaches math. As a teacher, I would use this picture book for interdisciplinary math and literacy lesson and I love that I could also incorporate more multicultural literature into any elementary classroom.

 The book begins by describing what the Dragon Boat festival is and then shows Luna and Mina making sticky rice dumplings with her mom; they talk about what a lucky dumpling is, too, which leads into the probability lesson part. There are only a few lucky dumplings and they have to mix them up with plain ones, but they decide to set up a game for their little sibling Bei-Bei.

While the book is marketed for preschoolers and kindergarteners, I think this would be a great book to use with up to second and third grade students in the classroom, to introduce a probability lesson in a lively way. The probability part of the book is presented in a developmentally-friendly way for young readers.

This picture book is also good for parents wanting to incorporate math learning at home in an easy yet entertaining way. If you are reading this at home, I think it would be enjoyable to pair the book with making sticky rice dumplings. The endnotes explain more about the Dragon Boat festival and how to engage with the probability math in the book.

Thank you to Charlesbridge and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.