What's Cooking, Jamela? - Hardcover

Daly, Niki

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374356025 ISBN 13: 9780374356026

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 2001

Synopsis

"Who could resist playful, imaginative Jamela?" -- School Library Journal

When Mrs. Zibi arrives to prepare the Christmas meal, Jamela decides to save Christmas, her chicken, from going into the cooking pot. She sets off with the chicken in her arms . . . and a trail of chaos follows. Suddenly it's Jamela, not the chicken, who is in hot water. But, as Jamela proclaims on Christmas's behalf, "You can't eat friends!"

This boisterous Yuletide story for all seasons features the same colorful South African township characters who made Jamela's Dress, an ALA Notable Book, such a delight.

About this title

About the Author:

Niki Daly is the creator of many acclaimed picture books, including Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky, a New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa, with his wife, the illustrator Jude Daly.

From Booklist:

Ages 3-7. Once more the characters from Jamela's Dress (1999) have uproarious fun in the crowded street and at home in their South African black township. There's nothing new about the story. Jamela wants to stop the grown-ups from cooking her pet chicken for Christmas dinner, and everyone knows she'll succeed in the end. The fun comes when Jamela bungles the rescue and the chicken gets loose and spreads chaos everywhere. Daly lives in Cape Town, and his words and pictures capture Jamela's dynamic world, where Christmas comes under a summer sky and many people wear bright clothes in African prints. A few words from several languages are woven in: Aikona (Zulu for No!) and mielies (Afrikaans for corn), and the Wise Men in the school nativity play wear Madiba shirts (the glossary explains that Madiba is the affectionate Xhosa name for Nelson Mandela). The post-apartheid visual details are dramatic: in Jamela's small house the sink has two faucets (showing there's both hot and cold running water), and there's a black announcer on the television screen. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0374356025
• ISBN 13: 9780374356026
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 36
• Illustrator: Daly Niki