Venus Washington and the Lasagna Drama

K-Gr 4–When readers meet Venus Washington, she explains that she doesn’t understand why her parents gave her such a name, since she is from earth and she has never been to Washington. It becomes apparent that Venus takes things literally. The young Black girl wants to learn how make grandma’s amazing lasagna, but grandma says if she shares the recipe, she will have to kill her! Venus tries to spy on grandma in the kitchen, but she’s thwarted. When the meal is ready, her grandpa takes it out and remarks that “grandma really put her toes in it,” leading Venus to assume that toes are the awful secret ingredient in her grandma’s delicious recipe. Young readers are taken through eight chapters of slapstick humor, innuendo, and amusing miscommunication as Venus joins forces with the Rivera twins Summer (her bestie) and Winter (her worst enemy) to get to the bottom of the rumor. This chapter book explores wordplay and teamwork with a hearty dose of silliness. Grayscale art, rendered digitally, deftly captures animated character expressions as Venus’s investigative high jinks escalate.