{"id":45931,"date":"2025-12-01T22:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T03:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=45931"},"modified":"2025-12-01T22:03:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T03:03:19","slug":"review-of-fish-fry-friday-by-winsome-bingham-and-c-g-esperanza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=45931","title":{"rendered":"Review of Fish Fry Friday, by Winsome Bingham and C. G. Esperanza"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Fish Fry Friday<\/em><\/p>\n

written by Winsome Bingham
\nillustrated by C. G. Esperanza<\/p>\n

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2025. 44 pages.
\nReview written November 18, 2025, from a library book.
\nStarred Review<\/p>\n

Fish Fry Friday<\/em> strikingly reminds me of the Caldecott Honor Book My Daddy Is a Cowboy<\/a><\/em>, with pictures by the same illustrator. Both books feature a little girl rising before dawn to go on a special outing with a relative. Both have vibrant, bright, colorful pictures, many at nontraditional angles, showing happy, loving people interacting.<\/p>\n

In this case, the girl is setting out with Granny to catch fish.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of other people at the pier and they all greet Granny enthusiastically, telling the girl that her Granny is the fish magnet queen.<\/p>\n

And then they start catching fish after fish. Granny declares each one her favorite and thanks God for the blessing.<\/p>\n

After their bucket is full, they go home to prepare for the Friday night Fish Fry.<\/p>\n

We clean fish,
\nscaling and skinning,
\ncutting and gutting.<\/p>\n

And when that’s done, Granny slowly slides the knife from the top to the tail. “Beautiful fillets,” she says, shaking them. “My favorite.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They coat the fish in batter, fry it, and even make hush puppies. Each part is Granny’s favorite. And it all builds to a big, happy family, in bright colorful clothes, sitting around the table, happily enjoying each other.<\/p>\n

“Spending the day with you, baby,” Granny says,
\n“is my favorite, favorite, favorite part!”<\/p>\n

“Well, my favorite, favorite, favorite part,” I say,
\n“is eating fried fish with you on Fridays.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reading this book with a kid may just end up being someone’s favorite. Few books exude so much joy.<\/p>\n

binghamwrites.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Picture_Books\/fish_fry_friday.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

Subscribe<\/a> for more reviews and talk about books.<\/p>\n

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fish Fry Friday written by Winsome Bingham illustrated by C. G. Esperanza Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2025. 44 pages. Review written November 18, 2025, from a library book. Starred Review Fish Fry Friday strikingly reminds me of the Caldecott Honor Book My Daddy Is a Cowboy, with pictures by the same illustrator. Both books […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,15,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemporary","category-picture-book-review","category-starred-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45931"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45966,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45931\/revisions\/45966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}