Matilda Makes Matzah Balls
" (A) child's enthusiasm and her grandmother's unconditional love and acceptance shine through in this tale of culinary traditions. Whether or not readers are familiar with matzah ball soup, they will connect with this family's loving preparation of traditional foods. Tender, warmhearted, and delightful." --Kirkus Reviews
"(A) tribute to the joys of intergenerational, open-minded home cooking." --Publishers Weekly
Matilda has always loved watching Bubbe make the soup. Now she wants to try out some of her own ideas. Adding lemon and dill to the matzah balls seems like a great idea. But making one GIANT matzah ball is a giant mistake.
Yet Bubbe is encouraging. "The best part of experimenting is you can always try again," she tells Matilda.
And so the grandmother/granddaughter cooking team continues the kitchen experiments, with some unusual (and unusually delicious!) results.
Includes a recipe for Matilda and Bubbe's Matzah Ball Soup.
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leading Italian and foreign publishers of children's books. She was a board
member of the Italian Illustrators Association for several years and is now a
member of the association. She has been a professor of illustration at
the European Institute of Design (IED). She lives in Italy.
matzah balls, a dish that's essential to Jewish cuisine, especially for holiday
meals. This Passover, Matilda will help Bubbe make the traditional
soup for the first time. Bubbe supplies an apron, and they hum as they mix the
ingredients. Matilda has lots of great ideas to jazz up the recipe, and Bubbe
is agreeable and encouraging. Sure, Matilda can add lemon and extra dill to the
matzah ball mix. Then they put the mixture in the refrigerator to chill.
Matilda has another very big idea. What if they make one giant matzah ball
instead of the normal small, round, moon-shaped balls? Bubbe is a bit
skeptical, wondering if it will float, but as always, she's ready to give
Matilda free rein. Of course, the heavyweight matzah ball immediately sinks to
the bottom of the pot. Bubbe soothes Matilda's disappointment, reminding her
that she can try again. The child's enthusiasm and her grandmother's
unconditional love and acceptance shine through in this tale of culinary
traditions. Gray-haired Bubbe and brown-haired, pigtailed Matilda (both are
light-skinned) are wonderfully exuberant in Galmozzi's bright, action-packed,
detailed cartoons. Watch for the all-important box of matzah meal that appears
prominently throughout the proceedings. Whether or not readers are familiar
with matzah ball soup, they will connect with this family's loving preparation
of traditional foods. (This book was reviewed digitally.) Tender, warmhearted, and delightful.(recipe for matzah ball
soup) (Picture book. 4-7) --Kirkus Reviews
Bubbe has asked her granddaughter Matilda, both portrayed
with light skin, to help make the prized "fluffy, floating, round-as-the-moon
matzah balls" for the Passover seder--"the start of a new Passover family
tradition, " Cohen writes. With buoyant cartoons by Galmozzi that alternate
between scenes of the two cooking and close-up framings of their culinary
handiwork, Matilda enthusiastically proffers her ideas for improving the
recipe--making one giant matzo ball and lots of little ones in the shapes of stars,
and creating pink soup by adding beet juice. To Bubbe's great credit, she's
never doctrinaire or naysaying, though she occasionally looks bemused. "It's
all right, bubbalah," she tells Matilda when the giant matzo ball sinks. "The
nice thing about experimenting is you can always try again." A slight, sweet
tribute to the joys of intergenerational, open-minded home cooking. Ages
4-7. (Mar.) --Publishers Weekly
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