Picture Book #20--Yoshi's Feast

Title:  Yoshi's Feast

Author:  Kimiko Kajikawa

Illustrator:  Yumi Heo

Grade Level Equivalent:  2.7

Lexile Meaure:  AD540L

Genre:  Children's Literature

Subgenre:  Realistic Fiction/Literature for a Diverse Society

Theme:  Being greedy and selfish only hurts yourself.

Primary and Secondary Characters:  Yoshi and Sabu

Awards:  Young Hoosier Book Award (Nominated, 2003)

Charlotte Zolotow Award (Nominated, 2001)

Red Clover Award (Nominated, 2002)

Date of Publication:  2000

Publisher:  Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Inc.

ISBN:  0789426072

Yoshi's Feast tells the story of Yoshi, a fan maker in Japan, and Sabu, Yoshi's neighbor who runs a hibachi broiling eels.  Sabu makes the best broiled eels in town but no one ever buys them because he lives too far out of town.  So Yoshi sits there every night smelling the delicious eels while Sabu sits there every night having to eat all the leftovers.  Yoshi believes that Sabu should share some of those eels with him since he is his neighbor but Sabu thinks Yoshi should buy some.  One day Yoshi asks Sabu why he won't share his wonderful broiled eels with him.  Sabu tells him he should pay for them like everyone else would have to.  Yoshi then tells him that smelling his eels is even better than eating them because he gets to keep his money and now his money box grows heavier every day since he is not spending it on eels.  Meanwhile, Sabu's money box grows lighter every day because nobody will buy his eels.  To get back at Yoshi for smelling his eels but not buying any, Sabu decides to broil samma, the stinkiest, smelliest fish in all of Japan.  This makes Yoshi's house smell terrible.  Not even his fan can get rid of the smell.  The smell is so bad that Yoshi can't even eat his rice without getting sick from the horrible samma smell.  In order to call a truce, Yoshi tells Sabu to broil his eels again and in return, Yoshi would bring in customers, which he does.  After selling his eels all day, Sabu brings over a platter of them to share with Yoshi.

This would be a great book to read to students in a whole-class setting.  I don't see any type of writing assignment or anything coming from this.  Just a fun book to read to students.  It is set in Japan so they get a little taste of another culture while reading a very funny story.  They will also learn a valuable lesson about being greedy and selfish.  Yoshi was greedy with his money, refusing to buy any of Sabu's eels even though he was rich and Sabu was poor.  Then Sabu decided to get even by stinking up the place with that nasty fish.  It's a great way of teaching students to help those who have less than themselves.  Students will also get a chance to learn various Japanese words such as "hibachi", "samma", and "arigato".