Let Me Fix You a Plate
A Tale of Two Kitchens
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Whether you're settling in for a heaping plate of Mamaw's banana pudding or Abuela's arepas and tostones, a good meal always brings family together.
A Charlotte Zolotow Honor Book
An ALSC Notable Children's Book
This tale of a family road trip highlights the author's joy in both her American and Colombian heritage, and captures all the warmth and love of her family's two distinct cultures.
Once a year, on a Friday night,
My family leaves the city
And drives hours and hours . . .
After a long drive to visit family—whether in the mountains of rural West Virginia or the sticky heat of Florida—what could be a better welcome than a homemade meal?
Inspired by Elizabeth Lilly's childhood vacations and the sense-memories of late-night journeys down the coast, Let Me Fix You a Plate is a vivacious exploration of family traditions old and new— from toast with homemade blueberry jam, to fresh orange juice and arepas with queso blanco, to midnight waffles at home.
Vivid illustrations explore the heart of the home—the kitchen—and the treasures found when a family gathers to celebrate their culture, and one another. Joyous, bright, and mouth-watering, this celebration of family and our diverse, delicious traditions is sure to leave readers hungry for more!
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
A CCBC Choice
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A road trip leads to two different kitchens—and a shared kind of love—as a narrator, two sisters, and their parents visit their grandparents. After "hours and hours" of driving from their city home, the car arrives in the "cool, dark night" of rural West Virginia, where the children's white paternal grandparents live. Mamaw serves them breakfast the next morning: "sausage sizzling in the skillet, blackberry jam on toast, and tractors on cups." Three days later, the family heads to Florida and the children's Latinx maternal grandparents: "Hay comidita adentro. Comense," Abuela says; "There's food inside. Come and eat." In West Virginia, the quiet house holds only Mamaw and Papaw; in Florida, "aunts and cousins and uncles and neighbors talk over each other above my head" while eating tostones and arroz and flan. Lilly's sharp eye notes the way the parents respond to being home ("my mom still laughing") and to leaving it ( Daddy "missing... quiet mountain tops"). With clear, bighearted text and an expressive ink line drawing the variously shaped bodies of her characters, Lilly (Geraldine) pays tribute to familial richness across generations and cultures. Ages 4–8.
