From Michael Rosen’s joyous ode to chocolate cake to the sumptuous, soporific picnics in the Brambly Hedge series, delicious feasts abound in books for young children. For her moreish debut, Dim Sum Palace (Pushkin, 1 Feb), Taiwanese-American author X Fang takes inspiration from her deep yearning for restaurant dumplings during lockdown, while paying homage to the doughy, dreamy world of Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen, one of her childhood favourites.
Excited about a family trip for dim sum the next day, Liddy can’t sleep. After she follows the trail of a tantalising smell out of her bedroom, she slips into a dreamlike palace where two giant chefs are preparing jumbo-size buns, baos and treats. She soon finds herself mistakenly wrapped up in a dumpling about to be served to an empress. A fantastical celebration of eating, Fang’s chunky, outsized illustrations seem to reflect Liddy’s big feelings about food. A gallery of exquisitely drawn dim sum adorns the endpapers, each treat neatly labelled, while Liddy herself is full of childish expressiveness – whether scowling at being squashed under a blanket of dumpling filling or gleefully tucking into lunch.
-copy-29e15046.jpeg?w=600)
