Stay for Dinner by Sandhya Parappukkaran and Michelle Pereira

💕Stay for Dinner
✒️Sandhya Parappukkaran @sandhya_librarybagbooks
🎨Michelle Pereira @youngpapadum
📚@hardiegrantbooks – kindly sent for review

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Family Feasts and Smiles

Some books you get to the end and realise you’ve had the biggest smile on your face the entire time you’ve been reading. Stay For Dinner is one such book.

Food has always been important in our family. For us it’s a love language all of its own. This book gives you that warm fuzzy feeling of family, belonging and the excitement of sharing your traditions.

Special Foods

Reshma loves the magic of dinnertime with her family. She eats delicious curry with her fingers and sadhya served on a banana leaf is a true favourite saved for special days. I wanted to find out a little more about this dish and found this recipe-along on YouTube.

Stay for Dinner Synopsis

Reshma plays with her friends after school and each day for various reasons she needs to ‘stay for dinner’ at a friends house. Each friend’s family serves different food than she’s used to in a different way. She loves it but worries what her friends might think if they knew how she eats.

To replay the kindness of the friends’ families Reshma’s family invite her mates for dinner. Reshma worries and wants them to serve something that she feels might be more ‘normal’ for the friends. However, it’s a special occasion and sadhya is going to be served. Reshma need not have worried as the friends have a great time.

Wonderful World Foods

The book is a wonderful celebration of other cultures and exploring the meals and how the meals are served and eaten in different families. It’s a lovely way of introducing children to the many different foods and ways we eat in the world and how there isn’t just one way. However the food is served, whatever way it is eaten I loved the strong message of food bringing people together that this book portrays.

Beautiful Illustrations

Michelle Pereira’s illustrations marry warmly with Sandhya Parappukkaran’s writing. You can feel Michelle’s childhood influences from living in Kenya shining through in her rich, textured spreads. There’s a lovely use of dark and light in the images and a warmth and gentleness subtly contrasts a vibrance and fun element to the illustrations.

A delicious book that I’m sure will put a smile on your face too. Oh and to add, the cover is hardback and such a tactile texture. Enjoy!

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