A tangled tale of tagliatelle by Yves Stening

Ill. by Nigel Buchanan. Dinner Detectives series. PublishCreative books, 2017. ISBN 9780648008712
(Age: 4+) Recommended. Themes: Humour, Pasta, Italy, Marco Polo. Clementine and her little brother, Aksel love food, and when a new girl, Sophia, moves into the street, they play football with her. She asks them to lunch and once inside her house, find that her father is making pasta.
When the children ask where pasta comes from this gives rise to the Dinner Detectives sleuthing the answer. In a bright and breezy style, the story of pasta coming to Italy and being developed as the food for which Italy is known unfolds.
From the funny map of Italy, showing its resemblance to a boot, with the main town of Bologna clearly shown, the story of Marco Polo and his eventful journey to China hundreds of years ago is told. One of the things he brought back to Italy, were the noodles eaten by the Chinese people. Once back home in Italy, the idea of noodles took on a life of its own, and the basic pasta was expanded from the plain long strings to all different shapes and sizes.
Any child reading this book will learn the story of pasta and its association with Italy and they will want to try the recipe for themselves, handily included at the end of the book. Through the book, readers will see how pasta is made as Sophia's father uses his pasta machine. They will see the different types of pasta and be able to learn their names, and be intrigued by the journey of Marco Polo.
This is the second in the series called Dinner Detectives, the first being, A fearsome beast and a dumpling feast by the same authors.
Fran Knight