Eaters of all ages will enjoy learning about the history of this popular food gone global.
The true story of Momofuku Ando, who persevered to invent a speedy, nutritious, and tasty ramen to help feed the hungry in post–World War II Japan.
A year after the war ended, people were still starving for food. Realizing that the “world is peaceful only when everyone has enough to eat,” Ando decided to make food his life’s work. In a backyard shed, Ando attempted to realize his dream of a more nutritious ramen. He experimented by adding different ingredients to a basic recipe of flour, salt, and water: eggs, powdered milk, and even spinach! He invented a way to infuse the noodles with flavor, but the noodles were still too tough. Then, watching his wife make tempura gave him a brilliant idea—fry the noodles! Frying creates tiny holes in the noodles, causing them to soften after just a few minutes in hot water. Voilà: tender, chewy noodles in hot, tasty soup that was ready in two minutes! With an aesthetic that’s straight out of a Hayao Miyazaki animated film, Urbanowicz’s illustrations pair deliciously with Wang’s concise, conversational text. Clever use of lighting, white space, and comic-book compositions moderate pacing in all the right places. The illustrator earns brownie points for accurate cultural details: geta (wooden sandals), cascading cherry blossoms, kanji characters, etc.
Eaters of all ages will enjoy learning about the history of this popular food gone global. (biographical note) (Informational picture book. 4-10)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-499-80703-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sanitized version of a too-short life.
A bobblehead avatar of the teenage writer and symbol of the Holocaust presents her life as an inspiration.
From a big-eared babyhood and a childhood spent “writing stories” to fleeing Germany for Amsterdam, Anne’s pre-Annex life is sketched. Narrating in the first person, the cartoon Anne explains that Nazis “didn’t like those of us who were Jewish or other groups who were different from them.” Hitler is presented as a leader “who blamed the Jews for all of Germany’s problems, even though we hadn’t done anything wrong.” Then in short order Anne receives her diary as a birthday present, the family goes into hiding, and Anne finds solace in the attic looking at the chestnut tree and writing. Effectively, Annex scenes are squeezed between broad black borders. Illustrations present four snippets of quotes from her diary, including “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.” Narrator Anne says, “You can always find light in the darkest places. That’s what hope is,” as she clutches the diary with Shabbat candles on one side and a menorah burning brightly on the other. In the next double-page spread, an international array of modern-day visitors standing outside the Anne Frank House briefly, in speech bubbles, wraps up the story of the Holocaust, the diary, the Annex, and the chestnut tree. Anne’s wretched death in a concentration camp is mentioned only in a concluding timeline. I Am Benjamin Franklin publishes simultaneously. (This book was reviewed digitally with 7.5-by-15-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
A sanitized version of a too-short life. (photos, sources, further reading) (Picture book/biography. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-55594-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
Blandly laudatory.
The iconic animator introduces young readers to each “happy place” in his life.
The tally begins with his childhood home in Marceline, Missouri, and climaxes with Disneyland (carefully designed to be “the happiest place on Earth”), but the account really centers on finding his true happy place, not on a map but in drawing. In sketching out his early flubs and later rocket to the top, the fictive narrator gives Ub Iwerks and other Disney studio workers a nod (leaving his labor disputes with them unmentioned) and squeezes in quick references to his animated films, from Steamboat Willie to Winnie the Pooh (sans Fantasia and Song of the South). Eliopoulos incorporates stills from the films into his cartoon illustrations and, characteristically for this series, depicts Disney as a caricature, trademark mustache in place on outsized head even in childhood years and child sized even as an adult. Human figures default to white, with occasional people of color in crowd scenes and (ahistorically) in the animation studio. One unidentified animator builds up the role-modeling with an observation that Walt and Mickey were really the same (“Both fearless; both resourceful”). An assertion toward the end—“So when do you stop being a child? When you stop dreaming”—muddles the overall follow-your-bliss message. A timeline to the EPCOT Center’s 1982 opening offers photos of the man with select associates, rodent and otherwise. An additional series entry, I Am Marie Curie, publishes simultaneously, featuring a gowned, toddler-sized version of the groundbreaking physicist accepting her two Nobel prizes.
Blandly laudatory. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2875-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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