#BOOKREVIEW #18
CHILDREN’S PICTURE BOOK REVIEW AS A WRITER AND A READER

Title: Maddi’s Fridge
Author: Lois Brandt
Illustrator: Vin Vogel
Genre: Children’s Picture Book
Target Reader:  4-8 years

Maddi’s Fridge is a marvellous book by an author and teacher, Lois Brandt. Every picture book I read stirs emotions, the most prominent one is love, but this book melted my heart and brought tears reading that a little girl is trying to hide her living condition.

Maddi and Sofia are best friends who love to climb and run. Maddi is a great climber while Sofia is a fast runner. One day, Sofia finds that Maddi’s Fridge has only one carton of milk which is saved for Maddi’s younger brother Ryan. Sofia feels shocked seeing that empty refrigerator. She couldn’t ignore that her friend doesn’t have enough to eat while her fridge is loaded with food. Maddi asks Sofia to promise not to tell anyone about her current situation. Bound by promise Sofia stays quiet but helps her friend by bringing food from her home hiding from her mother. When her quiet efforts failed, she broke her promise rather than let her friend go hungry.

Through this book, Brandt creates awareness among young children about the struggle many kids face and is teaching them the true meaning of friendship. She is showing two parallel worlds of over consumption and scarcity.

Lois has used her real experience to narrate a strong message to help little children develop empathy. When Lois was small, she opened her best friend’s refrigerator for a snack. The refrigerator was completely empty. The only thing on the shelves was one of those tiny cartons of milk handed out at school with the free lunch program. Her friend had saved her school milk for her little brother. That image of her best friend’s empty refrigerator stayed with her for her entire life and that influenced her to write a book.

The reality is stark. According to UNICEF, one in four kids live in food poverty. While some of us complain about water being too cold, tea being too hot, salt being less, bread being dry, or  not dining out often enough, there are 181 million children who go to bed hungry. If we asked them what they wanted, I doubt they would list conditions or preferences—they would simply want food.

With Maddi’s Fridge, Brandt is not helping one home or one friend, she is addressing a bigger problem. She is creating awareness and asking people to join the drive and support kids facing hunger.

Vin Vogel’s illustrations perfectly match the tone of the text. They convey the right emotions without overpowering the story, drawing readers into both the warmth of the friendship and the gravity of the situation.

This book reminds us that kindness can be as simple as opening our eyes to what’s missing in someone else’s fridge. It allows us to reflect on our privileges and encourages us to use them to help others.

If every privileged family supported just one underprivileged family, we could begin to uplift the whole society.

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