This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to our three winners: Tati, Silvia and Renee G.!!
Roxana first found this cookbook when she wrote about new bilingual toys for 2009. We were instantly fascinated by the genius idea of creating a set of multicultural cookbooks with the aim of teaching children about different countries’ customs and languages via food. That just seemed so correctly in tune with our mission to raise bilingual and bicultural children through fun and meaningful activities.
We’ve written several posts under the category of The Culture of Food because we truly believe that our traditional foods are one of the easiest and tastiest ways to connect our children with our roots, as well as an excellent way to open them to other cultures.
I set out on a mission to get my hands on a copy of the Handstand Kids Mexican Cookbook to use for my own family and to review for you. Lucky me, the Handstand ladies found us first!
I was all smiles when I opened up the huge envelope and found a large plastic tortilla bag with a Handstand Kids Mexican Cookbook and a child-size oven mitt inside!
Let me tell you why I love this book:
- The packaging concept is genius–a zippered tortilla bag!
- The illustrations are super lively and colorful without overwhelming the large, easy-to-read text for the recipes.
- The concept of the five multicultural/multilingual “Handstand Kids” amigos makes this relevant to their target age of children 3-11. You will find all five kids in each of the three cookbooks in the series (Italian, Mexican and Chinese). It’s the whole concept of friends going on cooking adventures together and learning from each other. Love it.
- The foreword by one of today’s top Latin chefs, Aarón Sanchez, author of La Comida del Barrio.
- Two pages with beautiful illustrations of the most common utensils and ingredients with their names in both Spanish and English. This is perfect if you just feel like sitting down and pointing to the objects while your child tells you or reads what they each are.
- My favorite fruit (or is it a veggie? We’ll never know for sure), aguacate (or palta…the debate continues) is used to determine the recipe’s level of difficulty for your kid. One avocado means a kid can do most of the steps by himself; four avocados means an adult will need to help her with the entire recipe.
- THE RECIPES! Camila still has another year to go before she can start experimenting with these recipes on her own, but that doesn’t mean she can’t start to savor the Fiesta Corn, or the Mexican Cookies, or the Chilaquiles, or the Shredded Chicken Tostadas, or…OK..I’ll stop myself here!
- All the recipes keep in mind how complicated we’ve become with our eating habits by providing vegetarian and low-fat alternatives, as needed.
- Mexican-ize My…This segment of the book has recipes that are common dishes your kid loves to eat and “mexicanizes” them. So, if chilaquiles just sound plain weird to him, you can just say you’re making lasagna into chilaquiles. Or sandwiches into tortas; or grilled cheese into quesadillas. Get it?
- Not only does this book promote the love of food, languages and cultures but also of giving. In one of the illustrations the Kids are holding a food fundraiser, selling tacos to raise money for the Common Threads charity.
Now, here’s a free tip for you: You can try out some of the recipes that they’ve made available via their website by going here.
While there, check out the colorful placemats with the Mexican (or Italian or Chinese) map on one side and the Handstand Kids on the other. The mats themselves are a great gift for your bilingual learner!
I definitely don’t want to be the only one having all the fun with this cookbook-Roxana is already jealous as it is! So, Handstand Kids has offered to give away a copy of their Mexican Cookbook Kit to THREE winners, all in the spirit of some Bilingual Summer Fun!
To enter to WIN:
For your chance at being one of the THREE winners, all you need to do is visit the Handstand Kids website and tell us who your favorite Handstand Kid is and why. Please be as specific as possible so we know you’ve visited their site.
If you want to increase your chances of winning you can get additional entries by doing any of the following:
1. Blog and/or tweet about this giveaway or about our whole week of Bilingual Summer Fun giveaways. Please leave an additional comment with the link.
2. Subscribe to our feed via email and leave us an extra comment letting us know you did so. Make sure to leave the comment using the same email you subscribed with. And please do verify the subscription once you receive the email to do so. We will check in order to validate the entry.
3. Subscribe via RSS. Once you do, or if you’re already a subscriber, email us the “Secret Phrase” at the bottom of the post to: giveaways@SpanglishBaby.com.
4. Become a fan of our Facebook page. Leave us another comment letting us know you did so.
This contest will close tonight at midnight EST…so don’t hesitate and enter now. It could be yours!!!
For the part that nobody likes, but we’ve gotta have, check out the Giveaway Rules.
Make sure you come back tomorrow and the rest of this week for more Bilingual Summer Fun giveaways!
I thought Ari was pretty cute, because like my little girl she likes all foods and is willing to try anything! Thanks for having such a fun giveaway.
I also liked Ari, because she has it in her heart to volunteer & is already planning to take some of the new recipes she learns to the food bank. Thanks for the contest, we’d love to win!
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I hadn’t seen you guys on Facebook before, and I just became a fan (Alexa C.). Thanks again!
My favorite is Felix, because he likes spaghetti and is a picky eater, just like my son right now!!
Great book girls!! I would love to have it
I blogged about it, yesterday!
http://www.mamalatinatips.com/2009/06/bilingual-summer-fun.html
I’m an email suscriber
One of my boys is sooo picky, so of course I have to pick Felix!
what a fun give-away. I like Felix because he’s a picky eater. Hopefully he’ll rub off on our kids and help us expand their vision on foods and different things to try!
I like Gabby. She shares my desire to speak many languages.
I signed up for the RSS feed to my google reader ut I didn’t see a secret word..
Thanks for letting me know Debbie. I´m on it. Your entry will, of course, be counted
I’m a RSS reader too!
.-= Silvia´s last blog ..Web Novela =-.
I like Gabby, because she’s so ambitious, wanting to learn languages so she can speak to people in their native language. Thanks for the giveaway!
I subscribed by email.
I tweeted it here: http://twitter.com/sweepsgoat/statuses/2390513576
Well, of course Gabby! She loves learning new languages and is eager to learn more Spanish words. A girl after my own heart.
.-= Karen´s last blog ..Finding authentic materials on iTunes =-.
I’m a fan on Facebook. That’s how I found out about this contest!
.-= Karen´s last blog ..Finding authentic materials on iTunes =-.
felix- he seems fun and loves spaghetti
My favorito is Marvin! He has dreams of becoming a chef and owning his own restaurant! I love it when kids dream BIG!
I am now an email subscriber!
Gabby is cute as my little girl loves having braids in her hair, she also speaks 3 languages
.-= Tati´s last blog ..To Brazil and Back =-.
I’m a fan of your facebook page!
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Subscribed RSS
.-= Tati´s last blog ..To Brazil and Back =-.
Subscribed e-mail
I love Izzy because he’s only 9 and he wants to go to cooking after classes! Wow! I wish they had that when I went to school, cause I remembered I love to cook back then. Plus he is a vegetarian and he’s proud of it
I retweeted… not sure how to show th link, but here it is: http://twitter.com/darielacruz
.-= Dariela´s last blog ..El Mundo Maravilloso del Museo =-.
After reviewing the site, my favorite Handstand Kid is Ari. I very much like trying new foods, my birthday is in December, and I would choose cookies as a meal anytime–I know Ari’s favorite food is cookies, she wouldn’t choose them for a meal, just me:)!
Ari as she has the same birthday as me.
My favorite is Gabby. I’m also working on increasing my Spanish and my kids too. I am a volunteer English teacher to non English speakers and enjoy when they meet a new friend that speaks their own language in class and can chat away. We have a lot of Russian speakers in class and I would love to learn a few words because I like the way it sounds.
I like Felix because he reminds me of my boys. They love spaghetti and are super picky eaters.
rsgrandinetti@yahoo(dot)com
I’m a facebook fan. (rsgrandinetti)
I am so psyched to win this cookbook! We are Food Network junkies and cook together a lot as a family. This will really add to the bilingual fiesta fun in our home at meal time.
Thanks. Gracias.
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I joined your Facebook Fan Club! Yahooo!
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Izzy is my favorite! We’re vegetarian so I love to see a character my daughter can relate to. And a Mexican lasagna recipe? Sounds dee-lish =)
.-= Carla´s last blog ..Hypnobabies and Community: My Lifesavers =-.
Here is my Tweet about this cool giveaway: Heard about the summer giveaways on SpanglishBaby.com? Check this one our for a cool cooking time with your children: http://tiny.cc/3xUpR
less than 5 seconds ago from web
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My favorite Handstand Kid is Gabby because she has the same birthday month as I do, October.
She also speaks English and Spanish like I do plus Farsi like our friend here in Tampa whose name is Parisa!
I lived in Mexico, where Gabby has visited two times, and I know that the fiesta corn will be a big hit with my family (especially if we win the cookbook)!!!!
.-= Boca Beth´s last blog ..Music Monday with Easy to Use Boca Beth Songs =-.
Would LOVE to review this book for the Latin Baby Book Club!
My favorite Handstand Kid is a tie between Gabby and Felix. Tengo un primo named Felix and they look a lot alike. Also, my son is a picky eater.
AND Gabby, because (again) she looks like my daughter with the braids. Also my daughter never stops talking (OY!) and loves learning new words.
Ciao chicas,
~Monica
PS I twittered it at the last second. You can check my profile….
besitos…