March is National Noodle Month

March is National Noodle Month

The Story of Noodles
by Ying Chang Compestine and illustrated by YongSheng Xuan

The Kang boys, Pan, Ting, and Kùai like to have food fights, but they find that rice is very hard to pick up. Then one day their mother asks for their help to make her dumplings for the annual cooking contest. Their mother has to go find one of the family’s pigs, and while she is gone, the children continue to cook. Unfortunately, the table breaks, and the dough is a mess. The children cut the dough into long strips and boil them in water, and when their parents come home, the “noodles” are everywhere. Their mother is not happy, but the children soon show her three ways of eating the new food. They also have to take the “noodles” to the contest, because there is no time to make any dumplings. Will the new food of “noodles” when the contest? What will the prize be this year?













Spaghetti for Suzy
by Peta Coplans

There are a lot of things that Suzy likes, such as dogs, balloons, and crazy bows in her hair, but Suzy likes spaghetti more than anything. In fact, Suzy likes spaghetti so much, that she does not want to eat anything else. Then one day a cat asks her for some of her spaghetti in the park to make a string for fishing, and a pig asks her for two pieces of spaghetti in order to make laces for his tennis shoes. Finally, a dog asks her for some spaghetti in order to knit a sweater. The animals are so grateful to Suzy, that they all bring her some fruit. Will Suzy eat the fruit that her new friends brought her? Will she like it as much as she likes spaghetti?















Oodles of Noodles
by Diana Hendry and illustrated by Sarah Massini

Ben and Ava’s mother receives a pasta-making machine for her birthday, and she is very excited about making all kinds of noodles for her family. Ben and Ava, however, prefer burgers and fries. As she prepares the dough to make noodles with, she thinks of garlic and sauce, while her children are still unconvinced. After Ben and Ava have left for school, their mother starts to use the machine. When she says “oodles of noodles,” though, the machine begins to make noodles on its own. Soon, Ben and Ava’s mother is completely wrapped up in noodles. The noodles soon make their way all over the house, and though she tries saying as many words as she can that rhyme with noodle, the machine will not stop. Soon the noodles are spreading all over town, and people are gathering them up with their pans. When the noodles get to the school, Ben and Ava know their mother must be in trouble. Will they be able to stop the noodle machine from making noodles? What will they do with all of the noodles?













Siggy’s Spaghetti Works
by Peggy Thomson and pictures by Gloria Kamen

The children have come to see how Siggy makes all of the spaghetti, macaroni, seashells, little bow ties, and lasagna and pack it into boxes. He explains that it all starts with flour and water, and that those two ingredients are all you need for spaghetti. The trick, he tells them, is in how much water you add, because it has to be just the right amount. He shows them how he gets the flour from a train and how he stores it in a silo to keep it dry. He shows them the machines that press the dough and create the spaghetti noodles. After it dries for a day, the spaghetti is moved onto conveyor belts where it is weighed and put into the boxes. The other noodles are made and boxed in similar way, and then the little boxes are put into bigger boxes and go onto trucks on the loading dock. There are parts of the machine, called dies, which control what kinds of noodles are made by that machine. There is also a list of different kinds of noodles and the words that describe them, and little bit of history about pasta and people like Marco Polo and Thomas Jefferson.