ABC Pasta: An Entertaining Alphabet

This book is ridiculous, and my son loved it so much when we checked it out from the library that I ended up buying it.

This went over well in our large Italian family - lol. Different & so cute, mom-to-be & new grandma LOVED it! I'm ordering 2 more.

As a phonics teacher, I'm always on the lookout for original ABC books to teach letter sounds. This book teaches the sounds through pasta types: spaghetti, rigatoni, fettuccini, linguini and zita etc. This would be a fun read for a kindergarten or first grade class. Then you can do an art project with the different shapes of pasta. As a former K-Ist Grade teacher, we used to glue pasta to a wreath shape or cone shape and spray them gold around the holidays. Very pretty! Or you can color dye pasta with food coloring, and decorate a Christmas Tree shape. Or an Easter egg shape of cardboard. You need something thick for the pasta to glue to. There are many pasta art projects you can do. Just google pasta art projects. You can do counting exercises with pasta such as put two pasta on a small paper plate, add two more. How much does that equal? 2+2=4. Or do take away problems. This book can be a fun catalyst for using pasta in the classroom. Of course, you can introduce Italy and some Italian words through the use of pasta. It's great to introduce young children to another language, culture and country. Maybe you can find an Italian who can come in and teach the children how to say the pasta names with a real Italian accent! Children love big, fun words like vermicelli. They remember them, too. I liked that they used real photos of pasta in the illustrations - very creative. This book opens up a lot of learning fun. Great for the Kindergarten, First Grade and possibly four-year-old preschoolers. Fun to read at home, and then cook some pasta. Try a new Italian recipe each night of the week with pasta.

We all know pasta is delicious, but who knew it could be so colorful and informative? After focusing on depicting animals in her last delightful concept book 1 Big Salad, Juana Medina adds human limbs, features and accessories to various pastas and other ingredients to create an engaging circus alphabet. Her lines are bold and sketchy, with splashes of color for cheeks and clothing added to create a beautiful, balanced effect. Medina has told me that Quentin Blake was a huge influence on her art, and it’s really visible in these energetic drawings. She constantly changes the way she incorporates the photographs of the different kinds of pasta (plus a few herbs and cheeses), sometimes using it for the body of the character, sometimes the head or the hair, and occasionally for wheels, instruments or hoops. This is a delicious concept picture book that readers of many ages will be thrilled to pick up.

This was purchased for the library where I am the children's librarian. I see very limited use for this book. If you are a pasta fan who wants your child to know what gemelli is, perhaps you'll like this book. But, as an ABC book, it fails.

What a great way to teach children to use their imaginations! Will be using for alphabet lessons and sharing with our art teacher for new creative projects. There is art everywhere, even in a little piece of pasta. :)