Happy Friday! It’s time for another Flashback Friday, and today we’re talking about Our Little Kitchen, a stunning picture book by Jillian Tamaki that celebrates both food and community.
Title: Our Little Kitchen
Author/Illustrator: Jillian Tamaki
Publisher: Abrams Books For Young Readers
Published: September 22, 2020
Format: Picture Book
Following several neighbors as they work in a community kitchen to prepare a meal for their neighbors, Our Little Kitchen teaches young readers how to be a good neighbor and take care of the people around you. From gathering produce in the community garden, to finding a creative way to use cans of beans from the food bank, Our Little Kitchen encourages resourcefulness and sustainability.
The illustrations are fantastic, and they capture the chaos of a busy kitchen perfectly. The pages are filled with a diverse cast of characters preparing and eating lots of food. While Our Little Kitchen is a great pick to open up conversations about food access, sustainability, volunteering, and community, I wouldn’t recommend reading it on an empty stomach. You might need a snack after reading, because everything looks delicious!
Our Little Kitchen is a beautiful story of a community pooling their resources to care for one another, and would be a wonderful addition to any young reader’s shelf. You can pick up a copy wherever books are sold, including Bookshop and Amazon. (Please note: Some links provided are affiliate links. Affiliate links allow me to receive a small commission for recommendations at no cost to you. This commission is used to maintain this site and to continue bringing content to you. I always appreciate your support!)
Abrams is donating $5,000 of their proceeds from Our Little Kitchen to the Greenpoint Hunger Program, which supports the community kitchen that inspired this story. I would like to thank Abrams both for the charitable donation and for providing me with a review copy of this lovely book.
About The Author:
Jillian Tamaki is an illustrator, author, and comics artist living in Toronto, Ontario. She is the co-creator, with her cousin Mariko Tamaki, of the young adult graphic novel This One Summer, which won a Caldecott Honor in 2015. She makes books and comics for people of all ages, including They Say Blue, a picture book about looking and thinking.
You can find Jillian online at: Instagram: @jilliantamaki Twitter: @dirtbagg Website: jilliantamaki.com
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