Apple Pie 4th of July

Apple Pie 4^th of July. Janet S. Wong. Illus. by Margaret Chodos-Irvine. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 2002. 34 pages. $16.00 (Hardcover). ISBN 0-15-202543-X. Grades PreK-2.

My Thoughts...

I just adored this book, but I am pretty sure it is for selfish reasons. I am going to do my best to link my honest to goodness reaction to an evaluation of the book.  Let me start here... our restaurant, Takosushi was open on the fourth of July this year. We serve sushi and southwest food items. We opened at 11:00 am and closed at 9:00 pm. We were not open for this holiday last year and expected to be off this year because who wants to eat sushi or tacos on the 4^th of July? Well…our answer was very few people. I got to work at 5:00 pm. Up until that point we had only had $286 worth of sales. Business did pick up in the evening, like the store in the book, but it was not a happy realization for us because while we had sales they did not mean we made money, and we would have rather been home grilling and shooting fire works. I was the bitter girl at the beginning of the story who wanted to be a part of the parade and eat apple pie. Still, the story did remind me of a very real life 4^th of July.

In terms of the book…I liked how the little girl in this story was proven wrong. I liked that Americans do eat Chinese food or sushi or even tacos on the 4^th of July because it shows that cultures are blending together to adopt new traditions. The same can be said for the Chinese family. I am sure they didn’t always eat apple pie on the 4^th like they do now. Yes, there are customs like bbqs and parades, but everyone can participate in those things now, and thanks to the diversity in our country we can then eat anything we want for dinner (assuming places are open). I mean I ate Mexican food for lunch on the 4^th this year. I like that her father said fireworks are Chinese. That shows we have been blending cultures for ages. It was just cute and I liked it. I don’t know if kids would like it since it isn’t action packed, but it seemed fitting for me to read.