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Lima's Red Hot Chilli
DUAL LANGUAGE BOOK IN CHINESE AND ENGLISH When Lima comes home from school she is hungry. She tries various foods but none of them are right.Then she eats the RED HOT CHILLI with terrible results!! Which member of the family can find the cure? This book has been used extensively at schools and there are loads od suggestion for follow up activities.
- GenresPicture BooksChildrens
24 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 6, 2013
Lima's Red Hot Chilli by David Mills is a fantastic, colourful book which would be great to read to children in reception or KS1.
A little girl called Lima arrives home very hungry. Her Mum tells her that there is plenty of food in the kitchen, but she must not eat the red hot chilli. Lima looks at lots of different foods, but none of them are quite right; the coconut was too hard and the samosas were too cold. Lima decided to try the red hot chilli, but it was so hot that her mouth felt as if it were on fire! Her family all give her different foods and drinks to stop her mouth from burning, but in the end her Grandma comes to the rescue giving her a glass of milk.
This story introduces children to different types of food and drink. In EYFS and KS1 I would use this to plan for an activity on food tasting. The children could role-play being Lima and trying all of the different foods. I would then ask the children to describe what the food looked like, how it tasted and its texture.
I also feel that Lima's Red Hot Chilli teaches children about the importance of trial and error – Lima's family tried lots of different ways to try and stop her mouth from burning until they found something that worked. In a classroom I would ask the children if they could think of any other things that might help Lima and why, or think of another scenario to see if they could come up with some options. How could they convince me that it would work?
Additionally, this story comes in dual language which would be helpful for classes with children with EAL. It also shows all children that there are many languages spoken in the world, and that stories, including their favourite stories, are read around the world in other languages.
A little girl called Lima arrives home very hungry. Her Mum tells her that there is plenty of food in the kitchen, but she must not eat the red hot chilli. Lima looks at lots of different foods, but none of them are quite right; the coconut was too hard and the samosas were too cold. Lima decided to try the red hot chilli, but it was so hot that her mouth felt as if it were on fire! Her family all give her different foods and drinks to stop her mouth from burning, but in the end her Grandma comes to the rescue giving her a glass of milk.
This story introduces children to different types of food and drink. In EYFS and KS1 I would use this to plan for an activity on food tasting. The children could role-play being Lima and trying all of the different foods. I would then ask the children to describe what the food looked like, how it tasted and its texture.
I also feel that Lima's Red Hot Chilli teaches children about the importance of trial and error – Lima's family tried lots of different ways to try and stop her mouth from burning until they found something that worked. In a classroom I would ask the children if they could think of any other things that might help Lima and why, or think of another scenario to see if they could come up with some options. How could they convince me that it would work?
Additionally, this story comes in dual language which would be helpful for classes with children with EAL. It also shows all children that there are many languages spoken in the world, and that stories, including their favourite stories, are read around the world in other languages.
November 10, 2012
Limas Red Hot Chilli is a story that I have just covered this week in a Year 1 English class. The story is about a young girl, Lima, who is looking for something to eat, however her mother warns her not to eat the red hot chilli. Lima searches the kitchen for something to eat and finds a variety of food that are either to hard, to difficult to open, or just not right for her. In her search she spots the delicious looking red hot chilli and sneakily takes a bite. To her despair, the red hot chilli was TOO hot and her face turned redder and redder. In an attempt to cool down her mouth, her mum, dad, aunt and granddad suggest their ideas which will cool down her month, including: mango, jelly and ice cream.
The class and I enjoyed reading the story and role playing Limas families attempts to cool down Limas mouth. The story book is in two different languages, making it a get choice of book in schools with a high number of EAL students. Following the lesson, the children had an opportunity to taste different food and there was a focus on their reactions to different types of food. In the next lesson, the children will have an opportunity to write about the food they tried and describe their reactions to the food.
I found this book to be a great book to use in class and to role play as well as teach children about different kinds of foods and the reactions they have on us.
The class and I enjoyed reading the story and role playing Limas families attempts to cool down Limas mouth. The story book is in two different languages, making it a get choice of book in schools with a high number of EAL students. Following the lesson, the children had an opportunity to taste different food and there was a focus on their reactions to different types of food. In the next lesson, the children will have an opportunity to write about the food they tried and describe their reactions to the food.
I found this book to be a great book to use in class and to role play as well as teach children about different kinds of foods and the reactions they have on us.
May 13, 2012
This is a delightful book about a young girl, Lima, who goes to the fridge to get something to eat because she is hungry. There at the back of the fridge, she sees a lovely red shiny chilli that looks a lot more appealing than the greasy samosas on the other shelf and so, she takes a bite and… fireworks explode from her mouth! She runs to various family members who prescribe her different things to try and relieve the pain including, water, jelly and ice cream before the burn finally subsides. Finally her mum asks her if she would like something to eat and she admits after the whole experience she is no longer hungry.
This book, written in both English and Gujarati, celebrates Lima’s Asian culture in a charming, accessible and humorous way. With beautiful, colourful illustrations this book is great for those who can identify with the experience and those that can’t. The repetitive, simple language make it perfect for those beginning to read. This story can be used as a foundation to a literacy lesson on sharing experiences about food using sequential vocabulary or as an introduction to foods from around the world.
This book is great for reading with 5-6 year olds.
This book, written in both English and Gujarati, celebrates Lima’s Asian culture in a charming, accessible and humorous way. With beautiful, colourful illustrations this book is great for those who can identify with the experience and those that can’t. The repetitive, simple language make it perfect for those beginning to read. This story can be used as a foundation to a literacy lesson on sharing experiences about food using sequential vocabulary or as an introduction to foods from around the world.
This book is great for reading with 5-6 year olds.
December 2, 2012
I loved reading this book to my children in my SBT 1. I read it over and over again to them over a period of two weeks and I never got bored of it myself.
It is about a girl called Lima who comes home from school and is very hungry. Her mother tells her that there is food in the kitchen but warns her not to eat the red hot chilli. Lima tries different foods, such as coconuts, somosas, spaghetti and sticky sweets but she finds problems with them. The Coconut was just 'too hard', the somosas were 'too cold', the spaghetti was 'too difficult' (to open) and the sticky sweets were 'too high'. Then Lima sees the 'shiny, delicious red hot chilli' and she takes a bite. The book explains how her mouth is on fire and is burning and Lima is screaming her house down. Everybody in her family try to help her cool her mouth down. Her mum gives her water, her dad gives her ice-cream, her aunty gives her jelly and her granddad gives her mango but none of those foods work. Then Lima's grandma gives her milk and slowly, Lima starts to feel better and forms a milky smile; with everybody in her family saying 'Phew'.
There is lots going on in this book which leaves teachers with the opportunity to carry out a number of activities with children; educating children in an exciting and engaging way. This book is appropriate to read to Early years children, especially Reception children.
There is not much repetition in the book as there are many characters and also many different types of food. However some language is repeated. When Lima's family are helping her, they say 'Water water, try some water,' with obviously the solution at hand changing to ice-cream, jelly, mango and milk. Even though there is not much repetition, this book is well-remembered by children ages 4-5 because there is a lot going on and they can carry out role-play of the book quite easily. The vibrant, detailed illustrations in the book makes the book so real as well; the children, without reading the story to them, can tell you the story setting, the characters and also exactly what is happening on each page. To my surprise the children could tell me who the characters were and how they were helping Lima. They could also talk about why Lima ate the red hot chilli, because the different food she tried before were either too hard, too cold....etc etc. For example, for the somosas,the illustration showed Lima taking them out of the fridge and not liking the taste. I asked the children, before reading to them what happened, 'What do you think is going on here?' Many replied, she does not like it because its cold. I then posed further questions by asking them why they thought that and they could tell me it was because she has just taken them out of the fridge. This book makes children think about what is happening and why. It also encourages problem solving skills to be developed; as they can think of different ways of solving Lima's problem of her mouth being on fire. I found the book is engaging and allows children to put across their own ideas/solutions with enthusiasm.
This book, as I mentioned earlier, can be used into any subject area to make the subject more real, exciting and interesting to learn about. Here are some examples,
Literacy: Ask the children to write Lima a list reminding her of who helped her from her family when her mouth was on fire because she has become 'Miss Forget full'. You can make this activity real to them engaging them by telling them that Lima has sent them a letter asking them if they can remember who helped her because she wants to tell her friends all about what happened to her. If they can remember, it would her really happy if they could send her a letter back writing down what they can remember. This activity can also relate to people and communities in the Early Years Criteria, as children can discuss who is in their family and who them from their family if they are hurt or in trouble, etc etc.
Numeracy: Tell the children that Lima wants to say thank you to them for writing such beautiful letters to her and helping her remember. But she does not know how many children there are and therefore how many things she will need for the picnic. Here, you could set up a pretend picnic where the children are using their imagination being in role play and also learning how to count objects and say how many are needed, etc etc.
Creative Curriculum: Tell the children that Lima wants to do something for her family to say thank you to them for helping her feel better. Tell the children she wants to make, maybe, something to eat (something obviously really simple for reception children such as toast, bagels). Within this, children can be talking about how they could say thank you to someone for being nice and caring towards them.
There are many more ways to use this book for educational purposes, such as matching pictures to words, characters to food, writing invitations and thank you letters. This book is a very family orientated book and is extremely appropriate for children understanding the importance of families and friends as well, discussing their own families and environment, being kind and caring to people and at the same time, learning how to write, read and work with numbers. It is a very enjoyable book to read and to use as an educational tool.
It is about a girl called Lima who comes home from school and is very hungry. Her mother tells her that there is food in the kitchen but warns her not to eat the red hot chilli. Lima tries different foods, such as coconuts, somosas, spaghetti and sticky sweets but she finds problems with them. The Coconut was just 'too hard', the somosas were 'too cold', the spaghetti was 'too difficult' (to open) and the sticky sweets were 'too high'. Then Lima sees the 'shiny, delicious red hot chilli' and she takes a bite. The book explains how her mouth is on fire and is burning and Lima is screaming her house down. Everybody in her family try to help her cool her mouth down. Her mum gives her water, her dad gives her ice-cream, her aunty gives her jelly and her granddad gives her mango but none of those foods work. Then Lima's grandma gives her milk and slowly, Lima starts to feel better and forms a milky smile; with everybody in her family saying 'Phew'.
There is lots going on in this book which leaves teachers with the opportunity to carry out a number of activities with children; educating children in an exciting and engaging way. This book is appropriate to read to Early years children, especially Reception children.
There is not much repetition in the book as there are many characters and also many different types of food. However some language is repeated. When Lima's family are helping her, they say 'Water water, try some water,' with obviously the solution at hand changing to ice-cream, jelly, mango and milk. Even though there is not much repetition, this book is well-remembered by children ages 4-5 because there is a lot going on and they can carry out role-play of the book quite easily. The vibrant, detailed illustrations in the book makes the book so real as well; the children, without reading the story to them, can tell you the story setting, the characters and also exactly what is happening on each page. To my surprise the children could tell me who the characters were and how they were helping Lima. They could also talk about why Lima ate the red hot chilli, because the different food she tried before were either too hard, too cold....etc etc. For example, for the somosas,the illustration showed Lima taking them out of the fridge and not liking the taste. I asked the children, before reading to them what happened, 'What do you think is going on here?' Many replied, she does not like it because its cold. I then posed further questions by asking them why they thought that and they could tell me it was because she has just taken them out of the fridge. This book makes children think about what is happening and why. It also encourages problem solving skills to be developed; as they can think of different ways of solving Lima's problem of her mouth being on fire. I found the book is engaging and allows children to put across their own ideas/solutions with enthusiasm.
This book, as I mentioned earlier, can be used into any subject area to make the subject more real, exciting and interesting to learn about. Here are some examples,
Literacy: Ask the children to write Lima a list reminding her of who helped her from her family when her mouth was on fire because she has become 'Miss Forget full'. You can make this activity real to them engaging them by telling them that Lima has sent them a letter asking them if they can remember who helped her because she wants to tell her friends all about what happened to her. If they can remember, it would her really happy if they could send her a letter back writing down what they can remember. This activity can also relate to people and communities in the Early Years Criteria, as children can discuss who is in their family and who them from their family if they are hurt or in trouble, etc etc.
Numeracy: Tell the children that Lima wants to say thank you to them for writing such beautiful letters to her and helping her remember. But she does not know how many children there are and therefore how many things she will need for the picnic. Here, you could set up a pretend picnic where the children are using their imagination being in role play and also learning how to count objects and say how many are needed, etc etc.
Creative Curriculum: Tell the children that Lima wants to do something for her family to say thank you to them for helping her feel better. Tell the children she wants to make, maybe, something to eat (something obviously really simple for reception children such as toast, bagels). Within this, children can be talking about how they could say thank you to someone for being nice and caring towards them.
There are many more ways to use this book for educational purposes, such as matching pictures to words, characters to food, writing invitations and thank you letters. This book is a very family orientated book and is extremely appropriate for children understanding the importance of families and friends as well, discussing their own families and environment, being kind and caring to people and at the same time, learning how to write, read and work with numbers. It is a very enjoyable book to read and to use as an educational tool.
February 25, 2020
ليما والفلفلة الحراقة
July 2, 2016
This book is classic and I remember being read to it when I was younger. In this book we follow Lima, a young girl who comes home from school and is feeling hungry. Her mother instructs her to get food from the kitchen and warns not to eat the red hot chilli. However, after finding every food item in the kitchen too difficult in some way or another to consume Lima is attracted to the ‘delicious, red shiny thing’ and eats it. She soon regrets this when her tongue feels like it is on fireworks. Her relatives rush to cure her burning mouth with a variety of cooling food and succeed at the very end. This book is appropriate for nursery aged children and can be used in the class to support and build communication and language skills in young children. One way that I observed this book being used in nursery is; the teacher brings the stated food items in the book to the class and allows the children to hold and taste them (except the chilli). The children talk about the food items from the way it looks to its taste and whether they like it or not. I was amazed of the quality of discussion that this raised and I would definitely use this book in nursery similarly.
February 12, 2017
Read in Spanish
January 23, 2012
Limas red hot chilli is about a young girl who is hungry and wants something to eat. Her mum tells her to look in the kitchen for some food, but not to touch the chilli. However Lima can not resist and eats the chilli! Here family one by one try to help Lima cool down her mouth with lots of different foods, finally, she drinks some milk which cools her mouth.
This story has a great moral to it,and the children in my class on placement really enjoyed it. We were able to plan lots of activities around this book, such as role play, healthy eating plates and food tasting. The children in my class loved role playing to this story and thought of lots of other things that might have helped Lima cool her mouth down.
This is a great book for KS1 children, and provides lots of opportunities for children to be creative.
This story has a great moral to it,and the children in my class on placement really enjoyed it. We were able to plan lots of activities around this book, such as role play, healthy eating plates and food tasting. The children in my class loved role playing to this story and thought of lots of other things that might have helped Lima cool her mouth down.
This is a great book for KS1 children, and provides lots of opportunities for children to be creative.
June 9, 2012
If only Lima had listened to her mum then she would not be in this predicament. Lima’s red hot chilli is a about a young girl who comes home from school one day and is very hungry, her mum tells her that there is some food in the kitchen but instructs her to not eat the red hot chilli in the fridge. Lima rummages around in the kitchen unable to find anything to eat until…. She spots the shiny red chilli, unaware of its hidden flames and burning sensation she picks it up and eats it. Fireworks start exploding in Lima’s mouth as her family try to help her.
This lovely book teaches children about consequences. Additionally the family’s trial and error game of helping Lima is a good way of teaching children the value of attempting new things.
This lovely book teaches children about consequences. Additionally the family’s trial and error game of helping Lima is a good way of teaching children the value of attempting new things.
June 1, 2013
Why is it that Lima wants to eat the one thing her mum has specifically said not to eat? A fun read for young children. Lima is one little hungry girl who can see six different tempting foods and one shiny delicious red hot chilli. Oh no! One bite and her mouth is on fire. Mum, dad, aunt and grandad all come to help but Lima's mouth is still too hot. Which food could Lima have to get rid of this awful feeling?
June 19, 2016
I love it.I still read it tomy 11 year old. Simple, funny and charming. Lima comes home, accidentally eats a chilli and her mouth is set on fire. She tries a variety of remedies to calm the heat. Hilarious.
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December 15, 2015Such a shame to see this lovely story in the nonfiction section. Can you imagine wanting to learn a new language after seeing it in a story you really enjoyed? I can!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews