My spaghetti abc by Deborah Niland

Watch out reading this book to younger readers, all sorts of ideas about what to do with their spaghetti will be formulated, egged on by the inviting rhyming lines and riotous illustrations showing one family’s foray into eating spaghetti for tea.

Each rhyming couplet urges the readers to predict the rhyming word, and to try out the words and lines for themselves, giggling at the images both imagined and presented before their eyes.

The spaghetti lover tries all sorts of things with her swirls of pasta: she eats it with her fork, spoon and hands, getting it on the floor and the chairs, telling Spot to eat it up, she makes shapes with the pasta - butterflies and glasses, a giggly face and wriggly feet and finds a monster swimming in the cheesy sauce. But when she fills her father’s cup with pasta, Mum has had enough and she goes off to her room, after stuffing her pockets with spaghetti. Here she develops a spaghetti abc, proudly showing her efforts to Spot, but finding it all so yummy, that she cannot help but eat some, leaving her favourite letters, a, b and c to make a present for her mother.

All is at peace until she makes a suggestion that brings a bemused, long suffering look to Mum’s face.

A hilarious look at meal times with spaghetti on the menu, all the mess of the meaty cheesy sauce swirling around bowls of spaghetti will remind people of the times they have eaten spaghetti at home or in a restaurant. Memories of the messes children can make will cause readers to laugh out loud, while they enjoy reading out the pairs of rhyming lines. This is a wonderful read together, a read out  loud, a sharing book for all ages, with rhyming that grabs the listeners attention and images which indulge their flights of fancy with piles of pasta.

Spaghetti is seen on every page as Spot and her owner lap up piles of the stuff. Watch out for the details: Grandma knits hers, the girl feeds hers to the dog, and plays nought snd crosses with some, there are faces hidden in the pasta, Dad eats several bowls, the baby has made bricks of hers, Spot has a new pasta coat and so on, each page draws the eyes in to look more closely at what Niland is offering. The opening double page reveals the alphabet in pasta, surely a prod to try it out for yourself.

A treat awaits all readers, young and old, recalling memories of meal times with young children.

Themes: Food, Pasta, Meal time, Alphabet.

Fran Knight