Chef Yasmina and the Potato Panic by Wauter Mannaert follows Yasmina, an affable girl who loves to cook healthy, nutritious food using vegetables she picks up in a community garden. She uses the veggies to make a delicious dinner for her father, who takes the leftovers for lunch. His co-workers tease him as they like to eat junk food like hamburgers and fries, but he enjoys Yasmina’s food as it is made with love.
The plot thickens as Yasmina encounters two neighbors in a dispute over the community gardens. Some rabbits have invaded the garden and decided to munch on the tasty vegetables. One neighbor wants to use pesticides and the other one doesn’t. Yasmina ends the dispute by devising a clever plan to deter the pesky rabbits, but before they can all rejoice, bulldozers start tearing into the community garden. A man named Le Perre plans to plant potatoes and make potato chips. Losing the community garden has stripped Yasmina of the ability to make food for her family. As a result, it leads her to an unsuspecting discovery, one that may rescue the gardens and her family.
One of the things I found striking about the artwork was the lack of rectangular boxes around scenes. The art was free to take on circular, square, or oval shapes. It was as if the illustrations blended in with the white pages instead of being contained neatly into a box. One scene I liked, in particular, was seeing an entire page full of the apartment building Yasmina and her father reside in. You get a look inside on the other floors and in the individual apartments. I found details like graffiti lining a wall under a highway underpass and contrasted that with the greenery of the gardens. There are bushes, trees, and the green coming from the leaves of the cabbage that pop and catch your eye.
Chef Yasmina and the Potato Panic is a wonderful story about a girl who cares for her father by making nutritious lunches and dinners for him. Parents and their children will find much to discuss with the story’s themes which center on processed food versus naturally grown food. Also, how to eat healthy when it is so easy and cheap to pick up a bag of potato chips. Yasmina’s creativity and fast thinking will inspire and delight young readers aged 8-12. This is a must-have for libraries wanting to develop their children’s graphic novel collections.
Chef Yasmina and the Potato Panic By Wauter Mannaert First Second, 2021 ISBN: 9781250622051
Publisher Age Rating: 8-12
NFNT Age Recommendation: Easy Readers (5-9), Middle Grade (7-11)
In this moving narrative about his father’s experiences in escaping Nazi-occupied Belgium to his eventual safe arrival in Canada, Cary Fagan effectively and efficiently offers contemporary young readers with relatable background information about this historical era.
Fagan’s introduction to Maurice Fejgenbaum begins abruptly; the reader is thrown immediately into the apprehension, chaos, and confusion experienced by the fourteen-year-old protagonist and his Jewish family as they frantically pack their belongings to flee persecution in Brussels. Along with the approaching lack of freedom, Maurice, who changed his surname to Fagan when he immigrated to Canada, articulates the everyday losses that the family is experiencing as they are displaced from their community. The family travels by train to Paris, Spain, and Portugal to finally escape to an internment camp in Jamaica, where there is little independence. Fortunately for Maurice, he finds a great deal of family and community support, along with some camp administration assistance. This support gives Maurice an informal but valuable education and the ability to obtain a second-hand English language dictionary, which becomes both his English language teacher and his talisman in his successful journey to becoming a lawyer at the University of Toronto in Canada.
It is Maurice’s thirst for knowledge and the strength of his family support that creates a foundation of hope against the ravages of war and antisemitism. His informal education does him in good stead as he applies to the local high school, Jamaica College. “I have learned the smallest act of kindness can make a huge difference” (41). This lesson is exemplified throughout the graphic novel, adversity is faced and overcome with the aid and kindness of those Maurice and his family meet in their struggle for autonomy.
The book as an object is deceptive as it appears to be a picture book intended for younger readers. However, opening the covers immediately dispenses with that assumption. The sepia illustrations and the panel layout illuminate the perils the family faces leaving their home, crossing Europe, and the tossing seas that accompany their voyage to Jamaica. As with the text, the illustrations offer lightness and hope within the borders of the horrifying wartime experiences while at the same time being authentic portrayals of them. The dangers and horrors the refugees experience during wartime are not sugar coated by either the text or the illustrations. The color palate used by Mariano contrasts the sombre colors of war with orange backgrounds that illuminate the memories, and future plans held by the individual members of the family. The facial expressions, especially the mouths, of all the characters add to the immediacy and emotions of the moment and effectively enhance the engagement of the reader.
The supplementary Author’s Note comprises additional historical background, photographs of the family and the ship, and documents of the Fagan family. It includes the poignant photograph of the mended, faded red dictionary now residing on the author’s own desk. It also delineates the loss of the rest of the extended family in the Holocaust. The dictionary of the title, while not a major focus of the story, plays an invaluable role in this tale, cementing the past with the present by demonstrating Maurice’s perseverance and hopefulness and witnessing the strong familial connection of the author to his father’s story.
Fagan’s family story of survival and persistence continues to be relevant in today’s time of turmoil, unrest, and continued and renewed antisemitism and is highly recommend for elementary school and public library collections.
Maurice and His Dictionary: A True Story By Cary Fagan Art by Enzo Lord Mariano Owl Kids Books, 2020 ISBN: 9781771473231 Publisher Age Rating: 8-12
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11) Creator Representation: Jewish Character Representation: Canadian, Jewish
Chef Yasmina and the Potato Panic by Wauter Mannaert follows Yasmina, an affable girl who loves to cook healthy, nutritious food using vegetables she picks up in a community garden. She uses the veggies to make a delicious dinner for her father, who takes the leftovers for lunch. His co-workers tease him as they like to eat junk food like hamburgers and fries, but he enjoys Yasmina’s food as it is made with love. 
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