Fortune Cookies

by Albert Bitterman, Chris Raschka (Illustrator)

Overview

A box arrives for Fortune from her Uncle Albert with seven fortune cookies. How wonderful! A cookie and a fortune for each day of the week! Best of all, each fortune comes true...but not in ways that Fortune expects.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416968146
Publisher:	Beach Lane Books
Publication date:	01/04/2011
Pages:	28
Product dimensions:	8.48(w) x 7.94(h) x 0.46(d)
Age Range:	2 - 5 Years

About the Author

A. Bitterman is the pen name of Pete Cowdin, owner of the beloved
independent children's bookstore Reading Reptile. He lives with his family is Kansas City, MO. This is his first book.

Chris Raschka is the illustrator of The Hello, Goodbye Window, which was awarded the Caldecott Medal. He is also the illustrator of the Caldecott Honor Book Yo! Yes?; Charlie Parker Played Be Bop; Mysterious Thelonious; John Coltrane’s Giant Steps; and Can’t Sleep. He lives with his wife and son in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

Rendered in Raschka's trademark loose watercolors, a child describes how a week's events are linked to seven fortune cookie fortunes, which readers can pull from the cookies via a tab. Each day, the child enthusiastically explains how the fortunes came true: "On Sunday my fortune said: ‘Today you will lose something you don't need.' And guess what? My tooth came out!" After Tuesday's fortune suggests trying to "find the good with the bad," losing a kite leads to finding a cat; when the cat disappears, the narrator abides the fortune, "Good things come to those who wait," which leads to a happy surprise ending. A tidy, perfectly paced story with subtle grace and a kernel of wisdom. Ages 2?5. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"A tidy, perfectly paced story with subtle grace and a kernel of wisdom."—Publishers Weekly

* "Seven fortune cookies guide a young child through an eventful week in this elegantly spare collaboration between a debut author and a Caldecott Medal–winning illustrator.... A buoyant celebration of pure, unalloyed joy."

—Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 2011, *STAR

From the Publisher

A young girl named Fortune gets a box in the mail from her Uncle Albert on the page before the title page. She tells us that it contains seven fortune cookies. To find what the fortune says, we must pull the paper fortune out of the cookie on the page. On Sunday, it says, "Today you will lose something you don't need." "And guess what?" she asks. Her tooth falls out and she puts it under her pillow. Each subsequent day of the week we pull out another fortune. And each day she asks us to guess what. And the fortune comes true in its own way. Fortune acquires a kite, loses it, finds a cat to take home; it disappears, and so it goes for every day of the week until a surprise ending. Raschka's casually applied watercolors require only minimal props to tell the visual story. Fortune is a charming youngster who giggles, cries, or smiles in response to her fortunes. Her adventures with her cat are particularly appealing in this light-hearted interactive tale. The sturdy construction should last a while as readers practice counting and the days of the week while pulling out the fortunes. Reviewer: Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz

Children's Literature - Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz

Seven fortune cookies guide a young child through an eventful week in this elegantly spare collaboration between a debut author and a Caldecott Medal–winning illustrator. Sliding out of its cookie with the pull of a tab that is the sole type of engineered effect, each fortune presages a subsequent occurrence. Sunday's "Today you will lose something you don't need" leads to a lost tooth and a dollar, for instance, and Monday's "Money is like the wind" induces the young narrator--depicted in Raschka's usual broad, Zen-like brushwork as a girl with orange locks over apple cheeks and a bright red shift--to buy a kite. Subsequent fortunes lead to a cat that vanishes, but then after a rainy day and a wish on a falling star ("Be careful what you wish for") it reappears. With seven kittens. "All my fortunes are here to stay!" the child gleefully concludes, naming each kitten after a day of the week. Only carping critics (and dismayed parents) will wonder what happens next. A buoyant celebration of pure, unalloyed joy. (Pop-up picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews