Food as a treat, food as a weapon, food that brings us together, and hunger that compounds our isolation . . . The stories collected here are united by the common theme of food or its absence.

Taking us into the private worlds of young people (oh, and animals and fungi), into childhood memories and everyday adventures, food appears in these stories as an integral part of our cultural life, our family life, and life on the road as a highway bandit! In some stories, food is the driver of the plot, in others it’s a detail in the background that is particularly telling of character, identity, or challenging personal circumstances. Join me on a mouth-watering tour of four continents through thirteen picture books, middle grade and YA fiction, and graphic novels.

PICTURE BOOKS

Grandma’s Roof Garden
Written and illustrated by Tang Wei, translated from Mandarin Chinese by Kelly Zhang
First published in China in 2019 as 阿婆的空中菜园
English edition published by Levine Querido, 2024

This charming book for younger readers pays homage to a grandmother and her ingenuity in using the roof of her apartment block to grow her own produce. The tireless granny in this cheerful story spends her days gathering up rotten fruit and veggies from the market to feed her compost heap and her hens, hauling herself up the many stairs and ladders to reach her rooftop idyll, tending to her plants, and sharing the bounty with family, friends, and neighbors. Dynamic pencil drawings fill every inch of the page with color and life, and a partially rhyming, always playful text oozes with wonder at one person’s ability to transform an often-forgotten space into food for the good of herself, the environment, and her whole community.

The Most Delicious Soup and Other Stories
Written in Spanish by Mariana Ruiz Johnson, translated by Rosalind Harvey
First published in Argentina in 2021 as La sopa más rica y otros cuentos
English edition published by Berbay Publishing, 2024

Evoking Richard Scarry’s busy world and the well-observed details of Canadian author and illustrator Marianne Dubuc’s Ready, Steady, School! (artfully translated from French by Sarah Ardizzone), this collection of five stories, laid out in an early-reader comic strip style, welcomes us into the charming world of small adventures for the littlest readers. Food plays an important role in Villa Verde, where Luis the tortoise eats cookies and plays video games with his granny, Frog brings chocolate cake to cheer up the campers after a storm forces them to set up their tent in the living room, and old Mrs. Bear rallies the whole village to make a huge cauldron of soup. Everyone brings a delicious ingredient and has a part to play in the making and the enjoying of the shared dish—and of course the tidying up afterward!

Cake for Everyone
Written and illustrated by Thé Tjong-Khing
First published in the Netherlands as Taart voor iedereen
English edition published by Gecko Press (Lerner), 2024

A party of merry friends heads into the country for a picnic, but horror of horrors—an eagle swoops down and grabs the blanket with their picnic bundled inside. A chase ensues, and with it a chaotic muddle of seeking and rescuing various items: finely dressed lady dogs teeter across stepping stones, and other animals cross a perilous ravine to retrieve a beloved cake stand. This captivating wordless picture book is a welcome reminder of how redundant text can be when the illustrations say it all. There’s so much going on here, but it’s left to the readers to construct our own story and frenetic dialogue.

If I Were a Fungus
Written and illustrated by Gaia Stella, translated from Italian by Nanette McGuinness
Published in Italy as Se fossi un fungo, 2024
English edition published by Millbrook Press (Lerner), 2024

Food is explored here from a completely different angle: as the accidental host for a fungus, an organism that is neither animal nor plant, that is everywhere and yet so often unseen, that can be so vast and sprawling that it is both here and there at the same time. Are mushrooms food or poison? And what food do fungi eat? The bold, stark illustration style invites you to expect the simplicity of a board book, but humor and cheekiness abound here, as well as clear, easy-to-follow scientific explanations of how fungi help plants extract nutrients from the ground, how they help break down pollutants, and how spores travel and find new places to grow.

MIDDLE GRADE / JUNIOR FICTION

Different: A Story of the Spanish Civil War
Written in Spanish by Mónica Montañés, illustrated by Eva Sánchez Gómez, translated by Lawrence Schimel
First published in Spain as Los distintos, 2020
English edition published by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2022

Told in alternating chapters from the perspectives of seven-year-old Socorro and her nine-year-old brother, Paco, this is the atmospheric story of a family hiding the truth about their missing father, who had to flee the country when Franco and the fascists seized power in 1930s Spain. Poverty and the ensuing hunger show the impact of political conflict on children. Paco dreams of grabbing his classmate’s bread roll, of running out of school and devouring it with tortilla and chorizos, but he knows he can’t risk doing anything that might make him stand out. “Stealing a classmate’s lunch wouldn’t be such a serious thing. But they would discover that I was hungry because I was the son of a Republican who had fled Spain. That was something that no one could know.” The sometimes surreal, somber illustrations are full of the siblings’ defiance and aspirations, at times bright with hope that they might meet their father again. The end matter includes excellent resources for further reading for young people and adults.

Little Badman and the Invasion of the Killer Aunties
By Humza Arshad and Henry White
Published by Puffin, 2019

Laugh-out-loud comedy for middle graders, this is three unlikely friends’ quest to save their school from the invasion of the alien aunties, who keep arriving to take the place of the teachers who have disappeared from school in mysterious circumstances. Humza Khan is a larger-than-life eleven-year-old rapper with an overinflated ego and mediocre detective skills, but even he can’t fail to notice when his own South Asian aunties become obsessed with feeding him even more snacks and sweets than ever. The story takes a South Asian trope of meddlesome aunties and turns it on its head; here are some badass aunties whose sneaky weapon is food. But just what is their evil plan?

Me and the Robbersons
Written in Finnish by Siri Kolu, translated by Ruth Urbom
First published in Finland in 2010 as Me Rosvolat
English edition published by Stripes, 2021

“Hold on to your sweets—there are bandits about . . . ” This comic novel takes us on a riotous adventure with a family of highway bandits touring summery Finland in a pink camper van. The Robbersons are mainly out looting for edible goodies, but one day they end up stealing twelve-year-old Maisie by accident. Initially determined to escape her fate, Maisie soon sees life on the road as precisely the adventure she was longing for. And she shares with the Robbersons a love of everything edible, especially fast food and pick ‘n’ mix sweets. When the family realizes Maisie’s wit and intellect is exactly what they need to improve operations, how will they ever manage to part ways? This brilliantly funny and touching novel was followed by a sequel in 2023. But there are nine in the Finnish series; let’s hope there’s more to come in English!

Na Willa and the House in the Alley
Written in Indonesian by Reda Gaudiamo, illustrated by Cecillia Hidayat, translated by Ikhda Ayuning Maharsi Degoul and Kate Wakeling
Published in Indonesia in 2018 as Na Willa dan rumah dalam gang
English edition published by The Emma Press, 2023

The sequel to The Adventures of Na Willa, this collection of stories continues author Reda Gaudiamo’s childhood memories of growing up in rural 1960s Subaraya and the cultural shift of moving to the big city, Jakarta. Food features prominently, with emotional associations, whether it’s the powdered milk and corned beef cans that Pak (Dad) always brings back from his trips to the city; the noodles they eat when they go for a walk at Jembatan Merah, the “red bridge”; or the green bean porridge they try at school (disappointing, because Na Willa and her friend had already imagined the mysterious pan would be full of delicious es dawet, their favorite coconut drink. “It’s totally yummy, especially if it comes with little pieces of jackfruit.”) Na Willa is as curious, defiant, and determined as in the first collection, and as full of questions for her weary parents, but the storytelling in the sequel is more accomplished, making for an even better read.

TEEN/YA FICTION

Ida in the Middle
By Nora Lester Murad
Published by Crocodile Books, 2022

At a time when starvation is being used as a weapon of war, this novel contrasting life as a Palestinian American teenager with life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories could not be more urgent or timely. An age-old symbol of Palestinian resilience and rootedness, and an international symbol of peace, the olive makes an appearance in this magical realist novel for young teens as the portal between thirteen-year-old Ida’s two lives. Every time she eats an olive from the jar, she’s catapulted between Oldbridge, Massachusetts, and her family’s village near Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. A Jewish American author and mother of three Palestinian American children, Murad conveys anti-Arab racism in US high schools and the injustices and frustrations of Palestinian daily life under Israeli military occupation with equal authenticity and empathy. The website accompanying the book includes thought- and conversation-provoking resources for use in school or book clubs.

The Djinn’s Apple
Written in Arabic by Djamila Morani, translated by Sawad Hussain
First published in 2017 in Algeria as تفاحة الجن
English edition published by Neem Tree Press, 2024

A murder mystery set in eighth-century, Abbasid-era Baghdad, this is a slim novella packed with atmosphere and tension. Against a violent and portentous backdrop, The Djinn’s Apple is the story of an (unusually) young, (outrageously) female doctor, defying prejudice and working her way up to the privileged position of personal physician to Her Majesty Zubeidah, spouse of Caliph Harun al-Rashid. It’s this privileged access and her learned erudition that open up the possibility of uncovering the truth about her family’s murder. But what is the mysterious Djinn’s Apple, and why is knowledge of it deemed so dangerous?

Read an excerpt of The Djinn’s Apple on WWB!

TEEN/YA GRAPHIC NOVELS

Delicious in Dungeon
Written and illustrated by Ryōko Kui, translated from Japanese by Taylor Engel
First published in Japan as ダンジョン飯
Serialized in English in the magazine Harta, and published in North America by Yen Press, starting in 2017 and currently ongoing

An often “hangry” band of adventurers forays into a cursed underground world to save their friend Falin from the dragon—though they are regularly distracted from their quest by rumbling stomachs and the need to cook up the various monsters and fantastical creatures they encounter, with expert culinary guidance from the dwarf Senshi. Dungeons, dragons, battles, and barbecues: this expansive foodie manga epic is available to read online here, in print (volume 13 is now out in English translation), and as a Netflix anime series.

My Body in Pieces
Written and illustrated by Marie-Noëlle Hébert, translated from French by Shelley Tanaka
First published in Canada as La grosse laide, 2019
English edition published by Groundwood Books, 2021

Losing weight—is that what it takes to be loved? To gain your parents’ acceptance? “Women pass down their body shame from generation to generation. They thought it was more important to teach me how to hold in my stomach than teach me to stand up and be proud of myself.” Drawn in smudgy graphite pencil, evoking black-and-white photographs moving in and out of focus, this relatable graphic novel charts the author’s journey from self-loathing and anxiety into a young woman unapologetically at home in her own body. Food and diet clearly play a role, but as the weapon of a prejudice that the protagonist eventually learns to stand up to, not without difficult conversations along the way. For any readers of French, Hébert followed up this moving graphic memoir with a reflective nonfiction prose work, Pleine: Carnet décomplexé, not yet available in English. 

Yoghurt and Jam (or How My Mother Became Lebanese)
Written and illustrated by Lena Merhej, translated from Arabic by Nadiyah Abdullatif and Anam Zafar
First published as مربّى ولبن: أو كيف أصبحت أمّي لبنانية in Lebanon, 2011
English edition published by Balestier Press, 2023

This graphic memoir looks back with bittersweet humor at a childhood in war-torn Beirut. Merhej unpacks the baggage of her troubled relationship with her mother, seeing with new eyes the hardship that Mama must have faced as a German immigrant in Lebanon during the Civil War, with five children and a full-time job as a pediatrician. “It always confused me when my father said: ‘I must remember that I didn’t marry an Eastern woman.’ I decided to investigate. What made her so un-Eastern? How was she different from the other mothers I knew? Sometimes she speaks in a weird language on the phone, she’s a nightmare in the kitchen, she gets angry as hell, and works nonstop.” Mama horrifies her children by eating yogurt with jam—German-style—instead of with cucumber and dill like everyone they know. Yogurt also appears as a pizza topping. And for every special occasion, Mama rolls out the same Apfelstrudel, and her signature dish of rice and curry— “Of course, always with . . . jam.” These are tender, funny memories of a family full of character, growing up on two continents, with all the cultural quirks and culinary concoctions that brings.