The Story of Noodles by Ying Chang Compestine

The Story of Noodles by Ying Chang Compestine, illustrated by Yong Sheng Xuan

Rating: 4 stars

Confession: The only reason I checked this book out was to continue my current campaign for Lorelei to love noodles.

Sadly, she still just tolerates them, eating the exact number, and no more, to get past my dinner requirements.  Grrr.  At least she tries them.  This week we've tired yet ANOTHER type of pasta, selected by her at the grocery store yesterday.  That means that in our pantry we've got: spaghetti, shell-like orecchiette, bow-tie farfalle, spinach penne, colorful corkscrew fusilli, and now some colorful tubular variety.  This quest has involved several books including Strega Nona, but hasn't given me the result I want.

Sigh.

At least I found a really interesting book in the process.  This book is about the origin of noodles, which is China, not Lorelei's (and beloved Grammy's) beloved Italy.  A family in Beijing is going to make the same old delicious dumpling dish for a cooking contest until the mother leaves the boys in charge of the kitchen.  (My grandmother, who also had three boys, would have known better.)  Of course, they make a mess of things and end up making long sheets of rice, which they cut into long strips.  They enter the contest and, because the emperor had never tasted anything like that before, they win.

What I love most about the book is related to my quest.  The three boys have three different ways of eating noodles, something that I think is great because I'm always saying that there's rarely only one way to do anything.  (Sometimes Lorelei wants Ben to do something EXACTLY as she wants.)  First, there's "eating a drumstick," which involves rolling some of the noodles around the tip of his chopsticks and stuffing it into your mouth.  second, there's "sucking a worm," which means you put one end of the noodle in your mouth and suck/slurp like crazy until the whole thing is in your mouth.  Third, there's "cutting the grass," which allows you to stuff noodles in your mouth and bite off all the strands hanging out of your mouth with your teeth.  So fun!  As the messiest eaters in the family, Ben and I would definitely be happy to try all of these.

(By the way, if you've not gotten cheater chopsticks for your kid, they are so fun!  We have these.  Lorelei is a pro, though they frustrate Ben a bit.)

So this is a good book for a bunch of different reasons.  There's a whole other culture to explore (and the illustrations are definitely Asian in the best way), the origin of the best carbohydrate known to man, and techniques to eat those wonderful carbs.  We look forward to reading Compestine's other books--after checking out this book, I realized she wrote The Runaway Wok, a recent book that we really like.

The Runaway Wok: A Chinese New Year Tale by Ying Chang Compestine

The Runaway Wok: A Chinese New Year Tale by Ying Chang Compestine, illustrated by Sebastia Serra

Rating: 4.5 stars

Yesterday I was itching to get out of the house, so when I put Ben down for his nap Lorelei and I scooted out the door to go to the grocery store...and hit the bookstore on the way there.  We almost didn't make it to the grocery store--there were too many good books to read!  We'd were ready to leave but then she'd find another book and say, "This is the last one, Mommy!" and then I'd see another I wanted to read and say the same thing back to her.  When I told my mother that we were there for about 90 minutes, she asked if there was a sale or something.  No way!  We didn't buy anything.  We just went to read.

While I wonder if Lorelei is related to me when she pushes away an uneaten dessert, I know she's mine when we can spend hours at a bookstore.  Together! 

Anyway, this was one of the books that caught my eye and I just couldn't leave without reading it.  I have a special spot in my heart for anything Asian--I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand and I have a graduate degree in Southeast Asian Studies (that is gathering dust!).  The Chinese New Year is coming up (3 February 2011) so there was a small display of Chinese books. 

The Runaway Wok is a story of sharing, a Robin Hood-style tale where a rusty old wok steals from the richest family in Beijing and gives to the poorest family in the city.  Of course, the rich family never shared any of their food, toys, and money, and of course the poor family shares all of the food, toys, and money that come their way.  The illustrations are high-spirited to say the least, and the scenes were just so different than what Lorelei is used to seeing, that these alone would have kept us in the bookstore for another hour.

"What's a wok, Mommy?"  Proudly, I said: what we used to make bee bim bop last night! 

"What are those lanterns for?"  They are decorations for the new year festival, or party.

"What's that dragon?"  A big puppet-like thing that walks and dances through the street!  Cool, huh?

"Can we see one sometime?"  Ok!  You got it!  Let me figure out where we can go!

THIS is why a book like this is so wonderful--to start conversations like this, to start thinking a bit differently, to just broaden--if only ever so slightly--the horizons of a young child.

I think my only mild critique is the way the rich family gets carried off.  The wok tricks them into chasing it and falling in, and then carries them away from the city forever.  For not sharing!  But I think it's appropriate and wouldn't change it--it's a fable, after all, and if it makes Lorelei a better share-r (to fear that Mommy's wok will magically whisk her away forever), well...that's not bad!