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Fortune Cookies

by Albert Bitterman, Chris Raschka (Illustrator)

3.98 of 5 stars 3.98 · rating details · 117 ratings · 29 reviews

A box arrives for Fortune from her Uncle Albert with seven fortune cookies. How wonderful! A cookie and a fortune for each day of the week! Best of all, each fortune comes true...but not in ways that Fortune expects.

Hardcover, 28 pages

Published January 4th 2011 by Beach Lane Books

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Feb 21, 2011 Reader rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-february-2011

In this story a little girl gets seven fortune cookies in the mail. As she opens one each day the fortune alludes to her successes and disappointments. Fortunately, by the time the story ends she has seven new mewling friends to make up for the lack of future fortunes. There are some distinct similarities to Remy Charlip's Unfortunately with this title. However, it's the interactive qualities that set it apart. As you read each fortune you pull a little tab out of the cookie and read it. I actua...more

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Jan 27, 2011 Betsy rated it 4 of 5 stars

In the old days, children's librarians were viewed as the gatekeepers of quality books for youth. That meant that they had to divide the wheat from the chaff. The good from the bad. The sterling from the meh. We still do that to a degree, though standards, like the times we are in, change. You see, there was a moment in history when one of the worst things you could call a children's book was "novelty". "Novelty" meant that a book was half a sneeze away from being a mere toy. "Novelty" meant tha...more In the old days, children's librarians were viewed as the gatekeepers of quality books for youth. That meant that they had to divide the wheat from the chaff. The good from the bad. The sterling from the meh. We still do that to a degree, though standards, like the times we are in, change. You see, there was a moment in history when one of the worst things you could call a children's book was "novelty". "Novelty" meant that a book was half a sneeze away from being a mere toy. "Novelty" meant that a book was going to appeal to a kid with fancy doodads and whizbangs, rather than with a good and coherent story. So Pat the Bunny was labeled a novelty and pop-up books were deemed novelties. You rarely saw them on library shelves. Time passed and the good side of novelty books, of those titles you can feel or beep or play with in some manner, has won out in the end. Though you'll still find some of the weakest picture books soaked in glitter in an effort to appeal to the sparkle-eyed child consumer, when it comes to interactive books a lot of publishers have found a way to combine strong stories with great art. Fortune Cookies might be a good example of this. It has a pull-tab premise, but if you printed it as a regular picture book without a tab in sight it will still stand as a strong title on its own. If it is a novelty then that is only because it is novel in its own right.

One day a small girl received a box full of seven fortune cookies. Dutifully she opens one each day for a week. At first the fortunes are fairly straightforward. Readers can pull the little tabs containing the fortunes out of the cookies, like the first one "You will lose something you don't need". The next day the girl loses a tooth. When the next fortune reads "Money is like the wind" she uses her tooth fairy money to buy a kite. Fortunes and real life continue to weave back and forth with the girl losing her kite, finding a cat, losing the cat, making a wish, and ending up at the end with seven little kittens. She names each one after a day of the week, making this not only a book about fortunes and the ups and downs of an average child's week, but also a handy tool for teaching the concept of Monday through Sunday.

A. (or Albert) Bitterman is the nom de plume of one Pete Cowdin, proprietor of the much lauded, much imitated, never excelled (or so I hear) Reading Reptile bookstore of Kansas City, Missouri. Now I'm a weird reviewer of children's books. I like to read way more into them than was the author's intent. And yes, I admit it, when I picked up this book one of my first thoughts aside from "I could really go for a cookie right now" (do you know they make flavored fortune cookies these days?) was "Oh good! A book about free will!" So let's see how the text stands up to this gleeful reinterpretation. Here we have a girl sent a mysterious box of fortune cookies from "Uncle Albert" (a sly reference to Albert Bitterman himself). When she reads the fortunes they have a tendency to either come true or allude to a true situation that will occur. Rather than try to influence her fate, however, our diminutive protagonist just lets events unfold as they may. It's the child reader who has to go back to see whether or not the fortune was on the mark or if the kid is stretching things a bit to justify the fortunes' existence. Expect a lot of backing and forthing with this book, then. It might be fun to ask a child if they think the fortunes are always true or if she just wants them to be true instead. You might get a greater variety of answers than you'd initially expect.

Of course, one thing I liked about the pull tab fortune cookies is the fact that the fortunes inside are very realistic. I can't tell you how sad I get when I open a fortune cookie only to find some vague words of advice rather than an out-and-out fortune. This book acknowledges those hugely frustrating pseudo-fortunes (faux fortunes?) by including a couple in the text. There's "Money is like the wind", and "Try to find the good with the bad." Blah. Gimme "You will meet a tall dark stranger" any day of the week over that vagueness.

Chris Raschka has a style that I've struggled with over the years. You know how you can respect an illustrator's art without ever feeling a close and personal connection to it? That's me. I can see why the man deserves his Caldecott and his laudatory comments, but I'm a representational girl at heart. Raschka's books can be beautiful, but sometimes I prefer the straight line of a thin-inked pen to these whirling swirling watercolors. In Fortune Cookies Raschka scales back the splatter. He is still wholly and entirely himself, but objects are recognizable and set against a white backdrop for the better part of the book. His heroine with her Ramona-style bowl cut and off-color bangs is a recognizable and relatable kid. His cat (who wears a delightfully woebegone expression when she first picks it up) is definitely all cat, as are her kittens. I also noticed that while Raschka isn't the type to hide small details in his work, there are larger details that a person might miss on a first pass. For example, at one point the little girl constructs a fort on a rainy day. Later, she relocates her cat and kittens that have taken shelter in, you guessed it, what appears to be the same fort. Bitterman doesn't specify that this is where they are to be found, but it makes sense in the context of the story. Well played, Raschka sir.

For a time I puzzled over who came up with the design concept for this book. As I mentioned before, if you just turned the fortunes into drawn parts of the book, this wouldn't have to be a novelty book at all. Was that how Mr. Bitterman envisioned it? Or did some clever soul, whether Mr. Raschka, the editor, or an Art Director, look at the text and suddenly realize, "Fortune cookie fortunes are the perfect size and shape to turn into pull-tabs"? Turns out it was the author's intent all along, which may explain why the story's strength matches its novel feel. In fact, unlike a lot of books with tabs (read: Maisy) these tabs not only slip back easily into place but it would take an extraordinarily strong tot to rip them out altogether. Once out, even a single missing tab would mess up a reading of the book. As a result they've built the interior of the book out of strong stuff. I wish I could say that the outside was just as sturdy, but unfortunately I can't. Because the binding has to be flexible enough to house twelve thick, strong pages, the hinge between the covers and the spine is highly prone to getting scuffs and holes and dings. The inside could conceivably last forever, but the outside quails at even the slightest test. Pity.

So you've a novelty book, a book of fate versus free will, a tool for teaching the days of the week, and a story with cute kittens to boot. Add in the Raschka and the Bitterman and this is one sweet little story that stands out. Libraries will take to it, children will take to it, adults will take to it, and I took to it. You will too. Take it out. It's an appealing little number.

For ages 3-8.(less)

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Jan 20, 2011 Green Bean rated it 5 of 5 stars

Celebrate the Year of the Rabbit with scrumptious snacks and playful twists of fate! Albert Bitterman and Caldecott Medalist Chris Raschka tell a tale of seven days, seven cookies, seven pop-up prophecies and one little girl discovering life's surprises. "On Sunday my fortune said: Today you will lose something you don't need. And guess what? My tooth came out. So I put it under my pillow. On Monday my fortune said: Money is like the wind. And guess what? I found a dollar under my pillow! So I b...more

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Apr 05, 2011 Gretchen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: k-3

Description: A box arrives for Fortune from her Uncle Albert with seven fortune cookies. How wonderful! A cookie and a fortune for each day of the week! Best of all, each fortune comes true...but not in ways that Fortune expects.

This book is really cute and creative with the way they incorporate the fortune cookies into each page.
Being able to pull out the fortune is very fun, but it was kind of hard to get the fortune out! Little fingers may work better. That problem aside, I would definitely...more

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Oct 25, 2012 Sarah Sammis rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Sarah by: my daughter

Shelves: borrowed, read-in-2011, read-to-me

Once Harriet started reading, she started selecting her own books. It's been fascinating to see which books she picks. The third book she read on her own was Fortune Cookies by Albert Bitterman.

A girl receives a package with seven fortune cookies. She reads one each day and relates the fortune to what happens to her that day. Not everything goes as the girl hopes they will but it works out for the best.

Each page has the fortune cookie, with a pull out fortune. That's a nice bit of interaction fo...more

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Jan 05, 2013 Miriam rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: picture-books, read-in-2013

This book was very cute. Any book that ends with a plethora of kittens. I did enjoy the story and the illustration, especially that precious yawning kitten at the end, but I felt the writing style was a little too simplistic. The fortune cookies themselves are awesome, but I'm a known sucker for pop-up books and anything of that nature. I might read this again, when I have time too sit down and enjoy it.

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Jan 13, 2011 Sam Bloom rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: picture-books, 2011-books

Pretty cool premise in this one - seven fortune cookies arrive in the mail, and the fortunes inside each one lead to a "week of good fortune," according to the back cover. Raschka's watercolor illustrations are bold and bright, and fit the story well. I like the pull-tab fortunes that the reader can pull out of the cookies. Pretty cool!

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Jun 07, 2011 June rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to June by: Cap Choices 2011

A cute story with days of the week and a tie-in with counting. Cute, but it didn't do anything for me, maybe 3 & 1/2 with the days of the week and counting and pull tabs...

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Jan 07, 2012 Heidi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: children-0-12, fiction, picture-books, 2012-book-challenge

Cute but not amazing. Fun to pull the fortunes out of the cookies. Fun ending (except for her parents, perhaps). Not quite what I was thinking for Chinese New Year.

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Jul 03, 2011 Charlotte Osborn-bensaada rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: picture-book

A young child recieves a gift with 7 fortune cookies that fortell another fortune at the end. Book is useful for teaching days of the week and the idea of idioms.

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Mar 10, 2011 Janell rated it 5 of 5 stars

So cute and clever with a sweet story too.
Buy one to give Patti for Chinese New Year next year with a bag of cookies.

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Aug 28, 2012 Alissa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: picture-books

My kids loved that you could actually pull the tabs to see the fortune from inside the cookie. Cute idea!

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Dec 07, 2012 Sheila rated it 5 of 5 stars

Love that the fortunes pull out and students can predict what will happen next.

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Dec 13, 2010 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: picture-book

Simple pull the flap book combining fortune cookies and days of the week. Oh so cool!

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Jun 11, 2013 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: childrens

I think I will try this one for a library preschool story time.

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Jan 30, 2012 Rachel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: picture-book, read-2012

An interesting and simple story, like the interactive elements of it.

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Jan 09, 2012 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a fun, interactive book that all students will love!

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Jun 08, 2011 Emma rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm really not a fan of Rascha's style but I do love fortune cookies!

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May 12, 2011 Michelle rated it 5 of 5 stars

love raschka. love fortune cookies. absolutely adore this book.

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May 29, 2013 Bethe rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: childrens-realistic

Adorable book with great life lessons in the fortunes. Wondering how well this book will hold up in the elementary library... The copy I read from the public library is missing Friday's fortune :(

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Jul 17, 2012 Janna rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: storytime-days-of-the-week, storytime-pop-out

Very cute, the fortunes in the cookies pull out.

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Feb 25, 2012 Dana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: picture-books

Good book for making and checking predictions

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Mar 30, 2011 Thia added it

Shelves: building-blocks, preschool

cats, luck, fortunes

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Jan 15, 2011 Megan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: finished-2011, picture-books, pop-up

Cute.

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Mar 05, 2012 Samantha rated it 4 of 5 stars

Inventive pull the flap story in which readers can pull tabs to reveal a different fortune for every day of the week! Simple story and bright illustrations make this a great read aloud. Positive story begs to be read again and again. Readers are prompted to guess what before each page is turned so this is a good title to use for predicting plot.

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Jun 25, 2011 Katie Fitzgerald rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: level-picture-books, story-time, published-2010s

Read at Saturday family story time on 6/25/11: http://storytimesecrets.blogspot.com/...

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Aug 15, 2011 Margie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: own-these-books

Review at http://librariansquest.blogspot.com

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Aug 29, 2012 Megan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: childrens-books

3.5 stars. Given that the fortunes are pull out, this would be well suited for individual storytime.

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Jun 17, 2013 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars

May 15, 2013 Mary rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: birthday, eating, popup-board-flaps-etc, picture-book, favorite-read-aloud

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