Description: Little Dumpling accidently rolls away from her family's tent at the Dumpling Fest and meets lots of different kinds of dumplings from all over the world as she finds her way back to her family.
Brief description: Susan Rich Brooke wrote her first book at age six about a mysterious professor with a magical cat, and from there her career path was set. She is a writer, editor, and mother of two grown children, and she lives in Evanston, Illinois, with her talented husband and two fluffy pups.
Review Quotes:
K-Gr 2-When a dog barks, startling the dumpling maker, Little Dumpling is rudely splashed out of her comfortable, broth-y home and finds herself lost at the World Dumpling Fest. Dumplings of all shapes (shumai, gnocchi, pierogi, and more) help her evade a wandering dog and find her way back to her sisters in the knaidel booth. But Little Dumpling soon departs on the fusion food truck to see if there are still more dumplings to meet in the wider world. The familiar lost-and-found plot skips along through a string of cheerful encounters with very little tension. In addition, these cute dumplings can talk, taste, smell, read, and swim, which may make readers uneasy about the characters' ultimate destination. Readers learn about the provenance of the 11 dumplings from the endpapers, and, beyond shape, discover little about the distinctions among them. Colorful digital illustrations portray appealing dumplings that are all head with big cartoon eyes, eyelashes, and wiry arms and legs.
VERDICT The novelty of the dumpling characters is not enough to rescue a very slender story with an obvious message.
Reviewed by Jan Aldrich Solow, formerly Fairfax County Public Sch., VA, May 14, 2021