I liked this book a lot and seeing Neeraj's imagination have fun with making different animals with the dough his mother gave him. Plus having the recipe in the back of the book makes me really interested in making my own chapati to try it.

A cheerful book perfect for storytimes in Asian Indian communities and to introduce new foods and Indian culture to non-Indian children. Simple text with universal, childlike themes. ( )

In my opinion, I thought this book was delightful. The book starts off with a little boy receiving dough from his mother for him to create something with it. The boy forms the dough into many different shapes, a snake, a mouse and even a cat. The first thing I liked about this book was the plot and the creativity involved. The boy wasn’t told what he necessarily had to make but he was free to create whatever he pleased. At the end of the book, the boy ended up making Indian flat bread called chapati. I also enjoyed the fact that the author incorporated Indian words within the book. For example, “His mother put it on the tava. It puffed up”. The word tava is explained in the back of the book, where the other Indian words are defined. The reader has to decipher what a tava is by using pictures as clues. The main idea of this book was to introduce food of Indian culture but also to inspire children to be creative. ( )