Cora Cooks Pancit

Cora Cooks Pancit

Written by: Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore

Illustrated by: Kristi Valiant

Shen’s Books, 2009

26 Pages

Multicultural Book

     I chose this book, because I was interested in the title.  I had never heard of “pancit” and wanted to find out what kind of food it was.  After reading the book, I learned that it is a dish eaten a lot in the Philippines.  The story is about a Filipino family and how the youngest girl, Cora learns to fix pancit with her mom.  The dish consists of chicken, noodles, and vegetables such as corn, cabbage, carrots, onions, and celery.  Cora’s older siblings usually help their mom cook pancit; but, when Cora sees her brother and sisters leaving right before super, she takes the opportunity to help her mom; Cora’s mother lets her pick what she wants to make.  Cora gets the job of shredding the chicken, checking to see if the noodles are done, and she also got to stir the pot full of pancit; she also got to wear her momma’s apron, which was her grandpa’s.  Cora’s mom tells her stories about her grandpa as they cook.  When they are finished, the family gathers to eat; they love Cora’s pancit! Cora was so proud of herself.

     I like the glossy, smooth texture of the illustrations in this book.  The colors are very rich.  The artist used water color paint.  The illustrator uses lines to emphasize her drawings.  It also looks like she sketched the drawings first, before painting them.  The pictures look very detailed and precise. I also like the different colors that the artist uses; she uses many dark colors such as brown, dark red, and several dark oranges, and then she adds some brighter colors to make the darker ones stand out on the pages.  I also liked the way that she paints the part where the family is sitting down to eat.  The artist used a two page spread, which showed all of the food on the table.   This made it easy to visualize the different types of food. 

     I would use this book to teach my students about the Filipino culture.  I learned a lot about Filipino cuisine from the book.  At the end of the book, there is a page that explains what some words in their language means.  I would show this to my students after reading the book and go over each word to increase their vocabulary and make them aware of the different language. There is also a recipe on how to make pancit in the back of the book.  I think it would be fun to make pancit for the class; it would be really good if we could have a few teachers make it together.  I could use the recipe in the book to teach sequencing.  I could have my students put the ingredients in order on a Velcro strip.  I could also have my students write about what their favorite dish is and how to make it.  Another writing activity might be to have the students write about a time when they got to help their mom cook something.  I could also have students draw what their dish would look like on a paper plate, or maybe even give each student a cooking pot make out of construction paper, so they could add ingredients.  I could go ahead and cut out certain vegetables, noodles, and meats such as chicken, and they could get what all they needed to go in theirs.  This could also be done with the sequencing activity as well. I think the book is most appropriate for kindergarten through second grade.