Barlow Melissa. Noodlemania!: 50 Playful Pasta Recipes by Melissa Barlow

Quirk Books, 2013. — 112 p. — ISBN10: 1594746176, ISBN13: 978-1594746178.Age Range: 6 - 9 years
Grade Level: 1 - 4Which pasta name means “little ears”? What’s the world record for the largest meatball ever made? Kids will have fun in the kitchen while sharpening their cooking skills with Noodlemania!Kids love pasta! It's fun, easy to make, and good to eat. Noodlemania! serves up 50 great recipes to play with in the kitchen, from crazy-cute Super Stuffed Slugs and Ladybug Salad to savory Totally Tortellini Kabobs and Big Fat Cheesy Shells. It even has recipes for sweet desserts and snacks, like Sweet Ramen Trail Mix and Crunchy Cinnamon Noodle Ice Cream Sundaes. Noodlemania! also teaches basic math skills and includes fun pasta trivia. How many thousands of years ago was the word noodle first used? What is the world record for the largest meatball ever? Let your kids have fun in the kitchen while sharpening their cooking skills with Noodlemania.You’ll go noodle crazy with the playful and colorful pasta recipes in Noodlemania! It’s filled with hot and cold main dishes, salads, and even desserts! Try Super Stuffed Monster Mouths made with jumbo pasta shells, Rapunzel Pastamade with extra-long spaghetti, Spider Cookies made with crunchy ramen noodles, or Gloppy Green Frog Eye Salad made with acini di pepe. Noodlemania! also teaches basic math skills and includes fun trivia. Which pasta name means “little ears”? What’s the world record for the largest meatball ever made? Kids will have fun in the kitchen while sharpening their cooking skills with Noodlemania!Who ever thought there could be so many different types of pasta--and so many fun, creative ways to prepare and serve it? [Noodlemania!] fills a quirky niche in kids' cookbooks.
--BooklistNot just for kids, customers of all ages will become pasta afficionados when they get a look at this fun-filled book.
-- Anna Jedrziewski, Retailing Insight, April, 2013Pasta is healthy, fun, easy to cook and can be used to produce food to appeal to all tastes. Just look at the cover picture to see what fun this book is! This book is an excellent way to encourage children to get into the kitchen and to take an interest in food and nutrition. The recipes can't fail to appeal to children - how about robot parts, green martian doodles, curly worms or green stink bugs? The 50 recipes even include some sweet desserts. They are easy to follow and there are plenty of mouth-watering photos. The book also includes some interesting pasta facts
--Parents in Touch, June, 2013Flicking through the book, I actually want to eat the Mini Spaghetti Pizzas myself. There's Pea-Nutty Noodles - a colourful dish of ramen noodles, pea pods bell pepper carrots dry-roasted peanuts topped with sesame oil and spring onions... I know this book is meant to be for kids, but I want that for dinner! How about 'Super Stuffed Monster Mouths' - Jumbo shells stuffed with ground beef, corn, tomatoes and cheese? Oh and the 'Totem Pole Tortellini' look really fun to make as do the Robot Bites. In the recipe for 'Under the Cheesy Sea Shells' there's an octopus made out of an hot-dog sausage! Of course fish and salad recipes can be found too and there are even a few desserts, which amazingly also include noodles. Great imagination of the author to come up with 'Spider Cookies' as the legs of the spiders are made out of chow mein noodles. A lovely book and the recipes look really very easy to follow
--Aglugofoil, June, 2013