Pasta Pasta Lotsa Pasta

4.0

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Author(s)

Aimee Lucido

Co-Authors / Illustrators

Mavisu Demirag

Publisher

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Genre(s)

Age Range

Release Date

July 02, 2024

ISBN

1534473637

Buy This Book

A family dinner gets out of hand as guest after guest arrives with a different pasta request in this “delectable” (Kirkus Reviews) and rambunctious rhyming picture book. How much pasta is too much pasta?

Ring-a-ding, the doorbell rings, and oh! What did my Nonna bring?

Nonna Ana from Catania only likes to eat lasagna. But Nonno Titi from Tahiti only eats his spaghettini! Zio Tony wants ravioli, Zia Trini wants rotini, the cugini want tortellini… Family dinners can be tricky when the guests are oh-so-picky! As the kitchen gets more and more chaotic, can family pasta night go off without a hitch?

Editor review

1 review

Pasta From Angel Hair to Ziti

September 02, 2024

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

4.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

4.0

A little girl and her mother are cooking a meal for their famiglia, and as they are cooking, more and more relatives show up with their favorite dishes to prepare. Nonna wants lasagna, Zio Tony wants ravioli, and Zia Trini even brings her cat, Houdini and her parrot, Pokey, who want rotini and gnocchi! The kitchen becomes more and more chaotic, especially when Zio Renz and his five children show up, wanting a variety of different pasta! When all the cooking is done, the mother tries to take all of the plates to the table at once... and drops them. Nothing is salvageable, so the family ends up ordering pizza!

Good Points

I imagine that young readers who don't have a lot of family around will love seeing all of the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins gathering around in the way that earlier generations loved to watch the big family in The Brady Bunch. It's a little chaotic, but everyone pitches in and helps out.

My favorite part of the whole book was the endpaper illustrations, which show different types of pasta, and I think the lasagna might be made out of a brown paper grocery bag! I would definitely have a couple of different types of pasta on hand before reading this one, because it just begs to be accompanied by a meal of macaroni and cheese made with fusilli or gemelli! (A little fancier than elbows, but not impossible to find!)

The pages are filled to the brim with characters, food, and background details like the pets and ingredients, so young readers will love to pick out objects from the pages, making this a perfect book for learning new words. Where are the zucchini? Where's the olive oil? What color is the cat?

The text is fast paced and exuberant, and rendered in half rhymes. The scansion is good, but I'm very picky about rhyme schemes so struggled with some of the pairings.

Add this book to the pantry with other titles that celebrate cooking with family and showcase a lot of diverse cultures, such as Gilmore and Valiant's Cora Cooks Pancit, Russell's Seoul Food, Kramer's Empanadas for Everyone, Reynoso-Morris Plátanos Are Love, Saaed and Syad's Bilal Cooks Daal, Tanumihardj's Ramen For Everyone, and Tamaki's Our Little Kitchen.