Fortune Cookies for Everyone!: The Surprising Story of the Tasty Treat We Love To Eat

Gr 1-4–In a dinnertime conversation, Grandma Miyako tells her grandchildren the story of how the fortune cookie of today evolved as a Japanese American invention. When Grandma was a girl, the owner of the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park served fortune cookies that were salty and made with miso. When he couldn’t keep up with the demand, he consulted another Japanese baker, who suggested that Americans would like the cookies even better if he made them sweet and buttery, which turned out to be true. The bakery got special machinery to help turn out more and more of the fortune cookies. Then, when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps, Chinese restaurants took up serving fortune cookies. When the Japanese were finally free to return to San Francisco, the fortune cookie equipment had disappeared from the bakery. But because of a fortune cookie’s advice, Grandma agreed to marry Grandpa, and now she has the good fortune of grandchildren. Wenjen, author of award-winning We Sing from the Heart, packs plenty of interesting nuggets of information into this loving intergenerational exchange. Adult readers may even be surprised by some of them. Kong-Savage (Piano Wants To Play) employs expertly crafted collage art that incorporates origami-like papers to capture the affection of this family relationship and to seamlessly set Grandma and the children into scenes from the past as observers. Back matter includes notes from author and illustrator and a glossary.