Publisher's synopsis
Stay for Dinner is a powerful story that celebrates culture and connection through food, from the creators of The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name, winner of the 2022 Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Award for New Illustrator.
Reshma loves dinnertime with her family. Her family eat with their hands – not just finger food type-eating, but hands-on squishy eating. When she’s invited to stay for dinner at her friends’ places, she finds out that they all eat in different ways. Some go ting ting with their cutlery, and others go click clack with their chopsticks. So what will her friends say when they see her family eat with their hands?
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Awards
- A 2024 CBCA Picture Book Book of the Year: Notable Book
- A Bookstagram Best Picture Book of 2023!
- Longlisted for the inaugural DANZ (Diversity in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand) Children’s Book Award
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Sandhya Parappukkaran is an award-winning picture book author, library assistant and avid reader. She writes stories inspired by her childhood experiences that encourage readers to embrace their cultural identities. Her books have been published all over the world and, among Sandhya’s many accolades, Stay for Dinner (illustrated by Michelle Pereira) won the Multicultural NSW Award at the 2024 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name (illustrated by Michelle Pereira) won the 2022 CBCA New Illustrator Award.
Sandhya believes that when we explore and celebrate our cultural identities, we show one another greater respect and empathy. She is a writer today because she is a reader, and she is a reader because of public libraries. Sandhya resides in Brisbane with her husband, three children and a backyard brimming with mango trees, curry trees and green chillies.
Bio and photo: Hardie Grant Publishing
Michelle Pereira is an illustrator who spent her childhood in Nairobi, Kenya and now lives in Melbourne, Australia. She graduated from Monash University with a Bachelor of Communication Design and became a professional illustrator after a somewhat extended, but enjoyable, stint of bar work. She has worked with a range of clients such as Penguin UK, Netflix, the New York Times and Marie Claire. Her work has won and been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the 2022 CBCA Award for New Illustrator and the 2024 Ena Noël Award.
Bio and photo: Hardie Grant Publishing
