Spaghetti Eddie

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 2-A long strand of spaghetti, blotchy with tomato sauce, takes children from the title page to the first page of the story. Thanks to his bowl of noodles and his desire to help, Eddie comes home a hero when his mother sends him to the store for frosting for his father's birthday cake. On the way, he meets three neighbors with problems (a broken shoelace, a broken fishing rod, broken guitar strings), and he comes to their aid with his spaghetti. At the store, he stops a robber with the only thing left in his bowl, a meatball. Back home, all of the grateful neighbors are celebrating the birthday-and Eddie's heroism. The pictures tell a parallel story, too, of a hungry little dog that follows the child closely through his adventures and finally gets some pasta. The thickly lined drawings capture the lighthearted spirit of ingenuity and neighborliness. This charming tale moves at a quick enough pace, with large pictures and succinct text, to work for a storytime.-Laurie von Mehren, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Parma, OH Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Spaghetti makes the world go round; leastwise it does in this silly, jazzy tale that tips its hat to the unconventional in us. Eddie is mad about spaghetti. He eats it every day, with Sunday off for ravioli. On the day readers meet Eddie, he's sent to the grocery store to buy frosting for the cake for his father's surprise party. Eddie trundles off on the errand with a trusty bowl of spaghetti tucked into the crook of his arm. Along the way, he deploys the spaghetti to help friends and neighbors: to mend a broken shoelace, to come to the aid of a fisherman, to substitute for the strings of a guitar that have broken. His remedies seem awfully strange, but they are accepted with only a raised eyebrow and tomato-stained fingers. When Eddie finally makes it to the store, it's in the midst of a robbery. Does Freddie lasso the thief with a long strand? No, the spaghetti is finished, but he does bring the culprit down with a mighty meatball toss. By the time he makes it home with the frosting, all the folks Eddie has helped along the way are there, spreading the word of his offbeat solutions. The story has a good, zippy tempo and the waggish art makes it all seem possible, capturing Eddie in his cool, maverick glory. (Picture book. 4-7)