Tag Archive | Middle East

T is THE TRAVELING TACO & origins of our favorite foods! by Mia Wenjen & Kimberlie Clinthorne-Wong (kids nonfiction) #A2Z

Apr23
Clockwise around title of book The Traveling Taco: the Amazing & Surprising Journey of Many of Your Favorite Foods, by Mia Wenjen: a huge ice cream cone, shaped pasta, French fries, juice, onion, spaghetti twirled on a fork, fish, pomegranate half, taco, olives, ginger, and shrimp.

We love it!
Let’s eat it!
It came from where?

Did you know that French fries didn’t originate in France, and cheesecake began in ancient Greece?

Find out about the roots of a dozen favorite foods and how cooks adapted them to new places using the ingredients and methods available there.

Learn the fascinating histories of fish and chips, jerk chicken, pizza, pasta, and more.

Each favorite food’s double-page spread includes what it is, where it came from, a “did you know?” fact, a rhyme, and how it changed in its new place.

“Recipes are crafted to delight and to nourish.
When a recipe travels, new minds help it flourish.
Popular foods can evolve over time.
Cooks add small changes that make them sublime.” (preface)

Kids of all ages will learn something new about a popular food in this yummy book (I did)!

What’s your favorite food?
**kmm

Book info: The Traveling Taco: the Amazing & Surprising Journey of Many of Your Favorite Foods / Mia Wenjen; illustrated by Kimberlie Clinthorpe-Wong. Red Comet Press, 2025. [author site https://miawenjen.com/the-traveling-taco/] [illustrator site https://www.kimberliewong.com/] [publisher site https://www.redcometpress.com/nonfiction/taco] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher, via Publisher Spotlight.

Hijacked in 1970! teen Girl on a Plane, by Miriam Moss (book review)

Sep12

book cover of Girl on a Plane by Miriam Moss Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | recommended on BooksYALove.comFirst-time solo air trip,
not her first time on this flight route.
First airline hijackings by terrorists!

The author was aboard this hijacked flight as a teenager in 1970, when no one knew just how far the Palestinian fighters would go with their threats to blow up the planes and passengers.

Read an excerpt here as the age of terrorism begins with the first plane hijackings as political statement.

Girl on a Plane is being released in paperback today, or find it in hardcover at your local library or independent bookstore.

Cooperate or fight back?
**kmm

Book info: Girl on a Plane / Miriam Moss. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers, 2016 (hardcover), 2017 (paperback). [author site]  [publisher site]  Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My book talk: Flying back to boarding school from her father’s Army posting in Bahrain, Anna’s 1970 journey becomes a death watch as Palestinians hijack the BOAC plane headed for England!

At 15, Anna is old enough to fly on her own passport, young enough to be seated with other kids returning to school, routine travel for them all.

Suddenly, men in the cabin flourish guns, forcing the captain to fly far into the Jordanian desert where the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine guerillas await.

Explosives are loaded onto the plane, food is not. With the engines off, their plane becomes a sweltering prison – Anna wonders if she, David, and young Tim with his pet turtle will ever get to school, will live to see another day…

Based on the author’s experiences as a teen, this gripping story is a glimpse into the tension-filled history of the Middle East and the passion of those who’d risk anything and everything for their cause.