A Season for Fishin’: A Fish Fry Tradition
by Pamela Courtney; illus. by Toni D. Chambers
Primary    Farrar    40 pp.
5/25    9780374390907    $18.99
e-book ed.  9780374395360    $10.99

It’s “Fish Fry Friday,” and Cher can’t wait: she is finally able to go on the family fishing trip. Papere gives her Great-Pere’s pole, with which he “won beaucoup contests,” and she joins her uncles around Cane River. The uncles “trash talk” and the children giggle. Cher finds a spot and quietly waits for the bream to bite. She catches a bucketful, but in her excitement gets tangled in her rod and loses all her fish. Though Cher is disappointed, Mamere gives her a red apron so she can help prepare the meal and reminds her granddaughter that the day is about family, not the catch. Courtney’s debut picture book celebrates the fish-fry tradition from her childhood in Louisiana. Chambers’s digital illustrations add to the celebration, with scenes of the fish fry exuding joy as people dance, eat, and play music. The endpapers show a table filled with fried fish, corn, and Cajun spice. This offering is a welcome addition to the growing landscape of picture books by Black authors highlighting the diversity of Black American life. An author’s note and a dictionary with words of French origin from “my rural, Southern English” are appended.

From the September/October 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.