Book Description
for Let Me Fix You a Plate by Elizabeth Lilly
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
“Once a year, on a Friday night, my family leaves the city and drives for hours and hours …” Destination: West Virginia, where Mawmaw is waiting. “Let me fix you a plate,” she says. The young biracial (Colombian/white) narrator describes the time her family spends with Mawmaw and Pawpaw, her dad’s parents, eating good things. “Three days later, we leave Mawmaw’s house so early it is still night, and drive and drive and drive, south and south and south…” Destination: Florida, where Abuela and Abuelo are waiting, and they spend time with her mother’s parents, eating different good things. Three days later, “we leave the little orange house and drive and drive and drive back toward our house in the city.” Within the parallel structure of the two visits to different sides of her family, the young narrator provides terrific observations about both sets of grandparents as well as family dynamics in each place in this fresh story further enlivened by terrific sensory language. Pen-and-ink, colored pencil, and markers were used to create cheery, vibrant illustrations that feel both childlike and sophisticated. (Ages 3-7)
CCBC Choices 2022. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2022. Used with permission.