Fabulous Feast

Hotel Flamingo #4

by Alex Milway

'Truly heartwarming and uplifting. I'd love to book a room there myself' Philip Ardagh

'Hotel Flamingo is bursting with charm, friendship and fabulous characters!' Laura Ellen Anderson

On Animal Boulevard the snow is finally melting after a long, quiet winter and Hotel Flamingo is ready to embrace the new season and new guests. Anna knows she needs to come up with a plan to get the hotel buzzing again! And what does Hotel Flamingo have that no one else has? One of the best chefs in town - Madame Le Pig! In a stroke of inspiration Anna decides that the hotel will put on a Battle of the Chefs. Madame Le Pig will go head to head with prestigious Animal Boulevard chefs Peston Crumbletart and Laurence Toot-Toot in a thrilling live cooking show - and there will be an accompanying feast for all who attend.

But as ever Anna has a lot to contend with - not just grumpy, demanding chefs but a host of new guests with ever-changing needs, from Simon Suckerlot the flamboyant octopus to Alfonso Fastbeak the stunt pigeon. And when taking centre stage proves harder than expected for Madame Le Pig, the whole team must pull together to buoy her up and pull off the most Fabulous Feast that Hotel Flamingo has ever seen.

Genres: Childrens, Middle Grade, Fiction, Animals, Chapter Books

181 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Tammie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read- May 2020 for Medieval-A-Thon (a pristine book)
-It's now 3:35am but I did it, I read all four books in one night. I'm so happy that I decided to read this series today, it was such a fun experience and I already miss all of the characters.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eeek, this was barely three stars for me. I found it a bit of a slog. The first Hotel Flamingo book was cute. This one was just a bit too long and just a bit confusing for the target audience, IMO (even my eight-year-old had to ask me, "wait, what's going on!?" a few times, and we have read many books well above his grade level with no problem) yet it had some very juvenile humor I wasn't fond of. There's an entire subplot about cowpats showing up in the hotel lobby. The hotel staff blames the visiting highland cattle but they deny it. I thought, okay, maybe this is going to be a good "don't judge" sort of moment but... actually, Mrs. Cow IS the one dropping the cowpats. Turns out she is allergic to grass and doesn't want her husband to find out so she lied about it... the grass just goes right through her and she can't control her bowels... Umm... :-/ I just do not find the humor in lying, incontinent cows going in a hotel lobby. I also wasn't loving the plot with the cooking competition. The chefs are all temperamental and rude (the hedgehog spits all over the floor!) and it just felt too much for the target audience. Besides which, there's very little actual cooking going on. Ultimately, there's a good message about honesty (Mrs Cow confesses all and ends up doing a grass-free diet), the Hotel Flamingo's chef realizes she doesn't have to be the best as long as she enjoys what she does, and the poor little bird who had an accident and was afraid of flying gains his confidence again. So, I'm giving it three stars in the end--barely. We have the other two books in the series out from the library and I hope they are more like the first book.

[Mehsi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful and fun book in the Hotel Flamingo series. This time competitions and cooking!


In overall I did enjoy the book immensely, I loved seeing the characters again, the hotel is flourishing (and getting more popular and known), I loved the cows and I do hope they are still together despite that one thing we find out, I am happy we see some more chefs even if they have even worse egos than Le Pig. I loved finding the animal (and I found it this time I was looking for it, which wasn’t the case with the other books). I love the names for the animals and seeing all the various new animals appear and see what they like to have in their rooms or what they need to live. I loved that our girl is getting more and more comfortable with running the hotel and that she is learning more with each book.

HOWEVER. There was just one thing I was less a fan off. The fact that next to the feast… we also have a superawesome stunt pigeon… who can’t fly. I found it took a bit too much of a spotlight at times from the feast. In the end the feast was a bit lacklustre in my eyes. I would have loved to see a bit more hype, more excitement. More contestants. More food.

Plus, I do think that Lemmy should have been honest with Le Pig from the start instead of hiding things. I get that you are afraid of her, everyone is, but better to be honest than to ruin a big important something for her.

The art was fantastic and delightful (as expected given that so far the art has always been fun and colourful).

And I definitely can’t wait for the next books.

Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com/

[shannon✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was very cute and heartwarming. The underlying messages were also great!

[Michelle Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my least favorite of the series, but my kindergarten son enjoyed it.

[Dorien Hermans · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Knetterende Kookwedstrijd" is het vierde deel in de "Hotel Flamingo"-reeks van Alex Milway.
In dit boek organiseert Julia een kookwedstrijd voor enkele koks van de Beestenboulevard. Ook Madame LeCochon, kok bij Hotel Flamingo, neemt deel. Welke gerechten toveren de koks uit hun koksmuts? Kan iedereen de stress aan? En hoe loopt het af met Alfonso Snelsnavel, de duif die niet meer kan vliegen?
Dit vierde deel uit de reeks is alweer een topper! De personages hebben allemaal een uniek karakter, de illustraties zijn eenvoudig in zwart en roze, maar heel mooi uitgewerkt, de hoofdstukken zijn niet te lang, het boek is makkelijk om te lezen, door het duidelijke lettertype. Ook om voor te lezen is dit een fijn boek, het is leuk om af te wisselen met stemmetjes bij de verschillende personages. Er wordt ook aandacht besteed aan verschillende themas, zoals onzekerheid, wat kinderen een mooie boodschap kan geven.

[Momentansicht · Rating 4 out of 5]

Band 4 der Reihe, hat mir wieder gut gefallen. Wieder ein spannendes Abenteuer, das mit Freundschaft, Zusammenhalt, Unterstützung und Vertrauen gelöst werden kann.

[Sam Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hotel Flamingo Fabulous Feast is also a great read. Still has a few “good grief,” gee whiz” or “golly.” This book is about a cook off for the hotel animal chefs. Hotel Flamingo is hosting the event in their ballroom. When they walk into the ballroom it has a mention of one of the animals doing the tango and one doing ballet, but it’s not a main point or focus just giving context clues for what a ballroom is. The remainder of the time the ballroom is mentioned it’s referring to where the cookoff is. At the end, one of the animals who participate in a cooking competition loses and he is a poor loser and spits on the floor and leaves mad, but he is also known in the series of being a mean character.

NOTE: I’ll let my 7yo read this one, but we will probably pass on the Yoto card for this one because it says “Darn right!” In the book, I’ll just mark it out and cover the “darn” with a small sticky note. 🤣

[Brandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable as always, we loved the cooking competition storyline (and the fact that it didn’t have the perfect ending we expected). However, the borrowed salt caused me a bit of stress as we waited for that to play out, and Violet and I both thought the mysterious cowpat plot point was a bit icky.

I’ll also mention it here since it’s not on Goodreads - so very grateful for the Life in Lockdown free novella Alex Milway wrote and illustrated for kids to download from his website. Such a lovely thing to do and an admirable way to bring some understanding of why we do the things we do in lockdown into the comforting/problem-solving world of Hotel Flamingo.

[Kelly Pinkerton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fabulous Feast was not as great as the first two in the series, but I thought it was slightly better than Carnival Caper. I'd give it 3.5 stars. My six-year-old's biggest complaint was the gap between the chef competition where a great deal of time was spent with Ms. Fragranti attempting to teach Alphonso Fastbeak how to fly again. I agreed with her that the meat of the story was the competition and more time should have been spent on Madame Le Pig and the other chefs.

[Efox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeah, these books are kind of fabulous. The adventure in this one is about a chef competition and a stunt pigeon who is afraid to fly after taking a bad fall. I don't think the story turned out how my 5 year old was expecting, and yet it was still ok. And I really liked that.

Thanks Alex Milway for creating such sweet characters, so many amazing stories, and such a wonderful series.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a fun conclusion to this delightful series!

Loved the battle of the chef challenge and how it all goes down

Great characters loved Ms Fragranti back in this one in a larger role. Fun to get to know Madame Le Pig a bit too. So many clever guests at the hotel -- cows, an octopus, a stunt pigeon and more.

Loved these books. Great read alouds!

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fourth book focuses on a cooking competition among the three top chefs on Animal Boulevard. Readers see the hotel staff prepare for the event as well as take care of various guests. Anna learns a hard lesson about being caring and actually listening to what someone else needs when Madame Le Pig is not excited to compete. Milway continues to develop these characters with plenty of humor.

[Laura Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one, maybe the best so far! I really liked the cooking competition and liked it even more that the result of the competition was not what I was expecting! I hope there will be more in this series!

[Alison (readinginazaleawoods) · Rating 4 out of 5]

“On Animal Boulevard the snow is finally melting after a long, quiet winter – and Anna knows she needs to come up with a plan to get the hotel buzzing again. And what does Hotel Flamingo have that no one else has? One of the best chefs in town – Madame Le Pig! Bring on the Battle of the Chefs, and the most fabulous feast Hotel Flamingo has ever seen…”

We finished Fabulous Feast (the final book of this four-book series) last week and just like the others, my girls loved it. With loveable characters and not-so-loveable characters, Fabulous Feast teaches young readers lessons about working together as a team, overcoming one’s fears, and how to win and lose well.
 
With that said, out of all the books in the series, this one was my least favorite. I thought the tone and attitude of some of the characters were a little rude and inappropriate for the target audience but could also be easily addressed with a quick: “Is that how we should act?” or “That wasn’t very nice, was it?”
 
Overall, this was a fun story with engaging illustrations. The series itself was enjoyable, garnered a lot of laughs, and one that I would recommend.
 
Fabulous Feast Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Series Star Rating: 4.75 ⭐️

[Juli Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this one for my kids. I've grown attached to the characters, and the new ones are great. I like how Madame Le Pig had to overcome some emotional obstacles, and there were several themes of perseverance throughout. Great read, great narrators on the Yoto audio as well.

[Sharni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading books set in Hotel Flamingo - at its heart it’s about kindness and excellent customer service - and we can all take notes.

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute fourth installment. Read aloud to me by my 5.5 year old daughter. She greatly enjoyed it.

Great series for grade K-3.

[Laurel Partlow · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really good for me but it’s a okay book

[Debbie Vaughn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The two younger kids loved this series. Fun read-alouds.

[Melissa Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elise and I really enjoyed this series!

[Heidi Selas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my least favorite in the series. The cooking competition was ehh but the characters were great as always! I feel like there's so much more that could've been done.

[The Youngs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love it so much!
Fabulous feast (#4).
By a boy of 6.I love it so
much because it has such GOOD ideas.

[Charley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing

[Victoria Schmidt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best chapter book series for children I've read. As an adult, I thoroughly enjoyed it as much as my 7 year old!

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another cute one but it took us a while to get through this one.

[Tuua · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tykkäsin todella paljon mutta jos vertaa ekaan nikn oli vähän huononpi

[Cara ES · Rating 4 out of 5]

So wholesome and such a great book all in all!

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this with my 4 yr old little bro and we love the characters. Even though some are hard to pronounce. I’m so proud of him for reading the series with me 🥰

[Lacie Carter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Last book of the series. Cute to read with your early elementary daughter.