Ah!
Winsome Bingham’s 2025 picture book Fish Fry Friday is a multi-sensory pleasure.
It’s told in the first person, usually singular, in the voice of child staying with Granny, and sometimes plural, talking about what “we” will do. It is quite a personal story, but also an accessible/universal one.
Grandmother and grandchild are preparing for their family tradition, which is a fish fry Friday. This means getting up before dawn, catching the fish, cleaning it, and preparing it (and the hushpuppies they enjoy with them), welcoming “the sides” brought by other family members. (To be fair, while it is clear that the bringers of sides are loved like a family, the book does not actually say if folks like Roscoe Ray [who brings the grits] are technically family or just loved like family.)
And then they pray. And eat. And talk.
That summary makes the book sound basic, and it is anything but. This book resonates with three things: the love between generations, the adventures of the everyday world–I hate fishing, but Bingham made the fishing pages exciting–and the texture of a community’s life. For example, when they get to the pier where they fish, there’s already a crowd of folks there to fish. They cheer for Granny, calling her “Lucky” rather than “Lucy” (her name). The child protests, but learns that to these people, Granny is Lucky, because she brings luck to their fishing.
And the art, oh, the art. A lot of children’s book art is functional, but forgettable. Not this book. C. G. Esperanza, who also illustrated Bingham’s Soul Food Sunday has won multiple awards for his art, and will, I predict, win many more. The colors in this book are so intense that they throb, and every page is full of motion and light.
If that’s not enough, the end pages include not just an author’s note, but a “cook’s note”–and a hushpuppy recipe. My mouth watered.
Highly recommended. I’m looking for more by this author and this illustrator, together or alone.
