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I WANT TO BE SPAGHETTI!

Name: I WANT TO BE SPAGHETTI!
Author: Kiera Wright-Ruiz
ISBN: 9780593529874

by Kiera Wright-Ruiz ; illustrated by Claudia Lam ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2023

Use your noodle and add this saucy tale to your collection!

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Learn to love yourself for who you are.

A bright orange instant ramen package, with big round black eyes and a tiny red mouth, sits on a supermarket shelf with fellow ramen packages. Ramen announces they would much rather be spaghetti—after all, the spaghetti aisle is much bigger, and there are so many people shopping for it. The other ramen packages try to change our hero’s mind by saying how cool they are—to no avail. After being purchased and driven home, Ramen hopes their new owners will prepare them with meatballs and tomato sauce. However, upon arriving in the kitchen, Ramen discovers their true destiny as well as accompanying treats that make ramen a tasty, unique dinner. Wright-Ruiz’s first-person narrative combines jaunty dialogue with rich vocabulary, like penne and fettuccine as well as nori and narutomaki. Her message that children should embrace what makes them different comes through clearly. Lam’s vibrant illustrations have a striking mangalike feel, with large round eyes, exaggerated expressions, and paneled vignettes that evoke humor and energy. Her vivid palette of yellows, oranges, and browns is mesmerizing, with pop art–style endpapers that feature ingredients from the story. An author’s note provides a short history of ramen. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Use your noodle and add this saucy tale to your collection! (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: July 11, 2023

ISBN: 9780593529874

Page Count: 56

Publisher: Kokila

Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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SPAGHETTI HEAD & CHICKEN FINGERS

by Rhett McLaughlin & Link Neal ; illustrated by Erica Salcedo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2026

Wild and wacky.

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A picture book from the comedy duo known as Rhett & Link, creators of the online juggernaut Good Mythical Morning.

Lumo is obsessed with chicken fingers; Saffy, who is new to town and anxious about starting school, finds comfort in the only food she likes: buttered spaghetti. The night before the first day of school, a thunderstorm rages, and each kid makes a wish—“to have chicken fingers at school,” in Lumo’s case; Saffy wishes for “the first thing off the top of her head: buttered spaghetti.” File under “Be careful what you wish for.” Lumo’s and Saffy’s respective physical changes (chicken fingers for fingers, spaghetti for hair) make navigating school a challenge but bring them together in the cafeteria, where they enjoy some new foods—and their new friendship. The plotting could have been sharper: Why do the kids’ bodies suddenly return to normal? And couldn’t the authors have thought up a less old-hat story-ending punch line? Nevertheless, McLaughlin and Neal get by on their charm, and the plot sets up some funny visuals. Salcedo’s cartoony Photoshop art features well-chosen artifacts from a typical kid’s life and captures the mortification of not fitting in, which will be familiar even to readers who have never experienced breaded fingers or noodle hair. Lumo is brown-skinned and dark-haired; Saffy is pale-skinned with disheveled reddish-brown hair.

Wild and wacky. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: June 16, 2026

ISBN: 9780063474154

Page Count: 32

Publisher: HarperPop/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)