The Kids' Multicultural Cookbook: Food & Fun Around the World

Includes background information and recipes for dishes from African, Native American, Eskimo, Hispanic, and Asian cultures

Grade 3-6-In this whirlwind tour of 41 countries, readers are given a quick dose of culture from each one. There are one or two recipes (their difficulty is rated by one, two, or three spoons) for each place and an introduction to a child who lives there. Occasional riddles and "fun facts" are inserted, such as the world record for watermelon-seed spitting. Foreign words are included with pronunciations. Readers are encouraged to try home-baked tortilla chips, ginger ale made from ginger root, and peanut butter soup. The writing style is breezy and inviting, and the illustrations are a combination of black-and-white cartoons and photographs. For a more straightforward approach, try Carole Albyn and Lois Webb's The Multicultural Cookbook for Students (Oryx, 1993), which contains information and one recipe from each of 122 countries. For more complete treatments of individual countries, try the "Cooking the...Way" series (Lerner).?Carolyn K. Jenks, First Parish Unitarian Church, Portland, ME
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 3^-6. A festive medley of recipes, customs, activities, games, and more, this book offers parents and educators fun-filled ways to immerse youngsters in ethnic diversity. Decorated with black-and-white illustrations and photos, the text is divided into five geographic areas: Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the Americas, and the South Pacific. Suprisingly, many of the recipes that sound intriguing, such as ox-eye eggs from Indonesia, turn out to be familiar dishes with unfamiliar names. But the foods aren't the real reason to add this to a collection. Rather, it's the selection of wonderfully creative ideas for theme parties--for example, a backyard tropical beach party--and the interesting sidebars alerting kids to kitchen safety, fun facts, and cultural clues that make the book stand out. Lauren Peterson