Norah Dooley

I liked the book “Everybody Brings Noodles” by Norah Dooley for two reasons. First, the book pushes readers to think about other cultures and how noodles are universal. It broadens readers’ perspectives by showing recipes from all the cultures that live on Carries block. For example, in the back of the book there are recipes that each family brought such as Mrs. Tran’s Vietnamese spring rolls, and Mrs. Hua’s yellow sesame noodles. Second, the plot of the story is organized and show more paced well. The planning for the party, and then the block party in general sequences events well. The big idea of “Everybody Brings Noodles” is diversity and culture. show less

In my opinion this is a great multicultural book. Carrie is told to find her little brother because dinner is ready. She enters each of her neighbors houses in search of her brother, but notices it is dinner time in each household. Every neighbor house she goes to are all cooking rice but in different ways, they are cooking rice dishes from their cultural backgrounds. She tastes each dish from all different places like Puerto Rico, Barbados, Vietnam, Haiti, China, India and eventually comes show more back to her house where her family is having an Italian rice dish. I really like how throughout the story, Carrie describes the different tastes she experiences from each household, this allows the reader to get an idea of how different the foods are even if they are all made with rice. The plot flows very well and is easy for children to follow. I really enjoyed the illustrations throughout the book because the reader sees the types of ingredients the family is using their dishes as well as seeing the different cultures in each household. Overall this book teaches children about diversity in a very simple way, through food, which is easy for children to understand. show less

Everybody Cooks Rice by Norah Dooley is a great book that introduces readers to different cultures and traditions based off of recipes made with rice. I like Dooley did not just include one culture and how they incorporate rice, but many others like Asian, Latin, African, etc. It is in the first person point of view and she describes into detail about the family dynamic of the home, recipes included, and any other traditions that are being used. At the end of the story it even includes the show more actual recipes to the foods mentioned in the book. The message of the story is that we are a lot more similar as people than we are different. show less

This book is great to introduce children to the importance of different cultures. This story goes through different cultures and give a glimpse of what the cook may look like to different people. This book is fairly long and has a paragraph for almost every page. It may be too much for young readers to try, but it would be a great book to introduce into the classroom. I think children get learn a since of appreciation for other people that may not look like them or may eat different foods show more than them. It is important for kids to understand that food is a part of different cultures. show less