Books that Cook: The Runaway Wok

[Books that Cook: A very occasional feature in which the Books Together Test Kitchen (that would be me and my kids) prepares a recipe from the back of a picture book.]

The Runaway Wok: A Chinese New Year Tale by Ying Chang Compestine (illustrated by Sebastia Serra; Dutton, 2011) doesn't overflow with rice (more's the pity, because the Festive Stir-Fried Rice recipe we tried was really good)--it's based on a traditional Danish folktale, The Talking Pot, instead. I found the economics (not to mention the ethics) of The Runaway Wok a little problematic, actually: the wok steals from the selfish, rich Li family to give to the poor, generous Zhang family. The Zhangs share the wealth with all the poor people of Beijing at a New Year's feast. And then they open up a wok shop!

Ying Chang Compestine, who has written a number of cookbooks as well as children's books, includes an informative Author's Note about the Chinese New Year. She says, "The most significant dish for children is the festive stir-fried rice, cooked in a wok. The various ingredients in this dish represent harmony and happiness. Parents urge their children to eat it so they will get along in the coming year." We'll see.

Notes from the Test Kitchen

• This recipe works best with day-old rice. We used brown rice to make it extra-healthy. 
• Feel free to make substitutions, like cubed fresh mango (instead of dried cranberries) and cashews. Delicious! I just hope it doesn't void the "harmony and happiness" clause.

Me, Frida

Amy Novesky's picture book biography of Frida Kahlo, Me, Frida (illustrated by David Diaz; Abrams, 2010), encompasses only one year--from 1930 to 1931, when the newly married Frida accompanied her husband Diego Rivera to San Francisco--but it's a critical one in Frida's development as an artist. Rivera, already an established artist himself, had been commissioned to paint a mural for the city and set to work almost immediately.

Novesky's elegant text delineates Frida's initial sense of loss and isolation (she had never traveled outside of Mexico and didn't speak English or have friends in San Francisco); her growing self-confidence as she explores the city on her own; and her arrival at what would become a distinctive style of painting--very different from Rivera's--intimate and inspired by 19th century Mexican folk art and portraiture.

The book culminates with the painting of this portrait, now in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (and reproduced in the Author's Note):

"That night, Frida painted something great: a colorful wedding portrait of herself and Diego. She painted Diego big, and she painted herself small, just as the world saw them.

But Frida knew she was more than this. And she put herself first. In the beak of a pink bird, she wrote a tiny note on violet ribbon:

Here you see us, me, Frida Kahlo, with my adored husband Diego Rivera. I painted these portraits in the beautiful city of San Francisco, California...in April of 1931."

David Diaz's paintings for Me, Frida are gorgeous, glowing works of art themselves. They were done in acrylic, charcoal and varnish on primed linen; in vibrant colors (acid yellow, turquoise, red-orange and hot pink) evocative of Frida's Mexico, and of San Francisco, too. I especially love their composition, the way Diaz's final painting, in which Frida stands in front of the wedding portrait at the opening of her first show, neatly reverses the scale of the two figures to herald Frida's arrival as an artist in her own right:

Diaz includes the pink bird from Frida's wedding portrait in almost every double-page spread, perched beside Frida or peering over her shoulder as she works. And although Novetsky's text doesn't mention the childhood illness and injuries that made walking painful for Frida (so often the focus of books about her, such as Jonah Winter's Frida--I should review that one next), she is sometimes shown, statuesque and beautiful, carrying a cane.

David Diaz and Me, Frida won a 2011 Pura Belpre Illustrator Honor.  Richly deserved, and highly recommended, for everyone.

Nonfiction Monday

Welcome to Nonfiction Monday at books together! My contribution is Me, Frida by Amy Novesky, illustrated by David Diaz (Abrams, 2010), which won a Pura Belpre Illustrator Honor this year. Please comment with a link to your Nonfiction Monday post (and a brief description if you'd like), and I'll round them up here throughout the day.  Thanks for participating in this edition of Nonfiction Monday!

Amy at Hope is the Word reviews Martin Jenkins's new book about endangered species. I've read Can We Save the Tiger? and agree that it is gorgeous.

The Coelocanth is in the news again! Robin of Bookmuse knows where to find more information about this mysterious fish.

Alex as The Children's War reviews a workbook for teaching World War II using primary sources. Be sure to check out Alex's other reviews of World War II-themed books for children and young adults, too.

Roberta at Wrapped in Foil has a glowing review of the newest book by Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long, A Butterfly is Patient.

Jennifer at Jean Little Library reviews Puppet Play, a craft book that would be great for a teen puppet program.

Jeff at NC Teacher Stuff reviews an Augmented Reality book about dinosaurs from DK.

And Lori at Lori Calabrese Writes! reviews National Geographic's Dinosaurs for emerging readers.

Shirley at SimplyScience reviews Hummingbirds by Jeanette Larson and Adrienne Yorinks, which offers an interesting combination of facts and folklore about hummingbirds.

Roll up your sleeves for Nonfiction Book Blast's projects from Explorers of the New World by Carla Mooney.

Tammy at Apples with Many Seeds is looking at all kinds of animal eggs.

Brenda at Proseandkahn writes about forces of nature.

Carol at Rasco from RIF features an ABC book that tells a story.

Paula at Pink Me is in with a review of Flesh and Blood So Cheap by Albert Marrin, a middle grade book about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that took place one hundred years ago this year.

At Bookends today Cindy and Lynn review Meadowlands by Thomas F. Yezerski.

Heidi at Geo Librarian reviews Tom Thumb: The Remarkable True Story of a Man in Miniature by George Sullivan.

Jeanne at True Tales and a Cherry on Top reviewed a picture book biography of artist Josef Albers specifically for books together.  Thank you, Jeanne! N.b., Jeanne's next picture book, My Hands Sing the Blues: Romare Bearden's Childhood Journey (illustrated by Elizabeth Zinon, will be out in September.

And Anastasia Suen is in with Spiky, Splimy, Smooth: What is Texture at Picture Book of the Day and The Story of Oil: How it Changed the World at Chapter Book of the Day.

Thanks, everyone!

A Family of Readers

Many thanks to the folks at the Horn Book, who recently sent me a copy of A Family of Readers: The Book Lover's Guide to Children's and Young Adult Literature (Candlewick, 2010), signed by editors Roger Sutton and Martha V. Parravano. I've been dipping into A Family of Readers here and there since it arrived, concentrating on the chapters about genre, nonfiction, and Girl and Boy Books in Part Three: Reading on Their Own. Each section closes with a list of More Great books of that particular sort, and since I tend to like what the Horn Book likes (see: this year's Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winners), I'm usually either nodding my head in agreement or adding titles to my TBR list. [Roger and Martha were at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast when A Family of Readers first came out to note which new books they would have liked to include, too.]

On a related note, the Horn Book is starting a new blog, Calling Caldecott. A companion to SLJ's Newbery blog, Heavy Medal, Calling Caldecott will also run from early fall through the winter (basically award season for children's books). And now that I've taken KT Horning's Caldecott class, I hope to be able to contribute something to Calling Caldecott other than its name.

Why couldn't I have come up with something catchier when I named this blog, though?