Books to Read...When You Want to Share a Meal

This time of year inspires memories of gathering together with loved ones, eating delicious food, and finding ways to express gratitude to one another and our communities. One of the most enduring ways to show we care is by sharing a hot meal or favorite treat with someone. Let these stories of families, neighbors, and friends cooking together inspire you to create deeper bonds and new traditions. Enjoy!

Cooking for your neighbors:

What's Cooking at 10 Garden Street?

By Felicita Sala

New York, NY: Prestel Publishing, 2019. Picture Book.

In an old apartment building on Garden Street, each resident is cooking up something special to share with their neighbors in a communal meal. Representing a diverse array of cultures with charming illustrations, each neighbor's simple recipe is included for readers to try at home.

Cooking with your family:

Soul Food Sunday

Written by Winsome Bingham

Illustrated by C. G. Esperanza

New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2021. Picture Book.

A Coretta Scott King Honor book, Soul Food Sunday celebrates the lasting relationships that are created through the passing down of food traditions when a grandmother teaches her young grandson how to make family favorites.

Cooking with your friends:

Bilal Cooks Daal

Written by Aisha Saeed

Illustrated by Anoosha Syed

New York: Salaam Reads, 2019. Picture Book.

Bilal wants to share his love of a family favorite dish, daal, with his friends. So, he includes them in the process from start to finish, including the great patience necessary to enjoy it at its most delicious!

Cooking for your community:

Our Little Kitchen

By Jillian Tamaki

New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2020. Picture Book.

Rife with boisterous energy from the lively illustrations, Our Little Kitchen, follows kitchen volunteers as they cook for their community. Resourcefulness in using a limited supply of available ingredients is emphasized, which provides realistic insight into this based-on-true-life tale.

Comments

Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) by Pamela Espeland & Elizabeth Verdick

If there's one book today's kids need to read, it is Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) . The authors provide a fun format for teaching etiquette to children. They discuss proper behavior at home, at school, at other people's homes and in public places. The information is completely up-to-date with cellphone manners and netiquette included. Fun, cartoony illustrations are on practically every page giving the book great visual appeal. This book is perfect for boys and girls in the fourth grade or older. WARNING: Bodily functions are discussed.

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin Illustrated by Leslie Evans Charlesburg; 2009; unpaged Faces of the Moon is a short nonfiction book that describes the different phases of the moon and why the moon appears like it does on certain nights. This book is short and sweet so even the youngest of moon lovers will enjoy it. The layout is simplistic and easy to follow. I don’t know much about the moon so I found it very interesting.

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages. Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...

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