Celebrating Picture Books: Feeding Friendsies

November is Picture Book Month. I’ll be joining in the celebration each Monday, reviewing fun books that have a science and nature slant. My first book is .....

Feeding Friendsies

By Suzanne Bloom

Ages 2 – 6

Boyds Mills Press 2011

I picked this book for its cover, but mud pie aficionados will pick it for Suzanne Bloom’s playful presentation of fresh-from-the-garden snacks.

“Lolly made a lovely, crunchy lunch from stems and leaves with flowers on top,” writes Bloom. Will she eat it? No – she made it for the butterflies.  A pair of Swallowtails, a Monarch, and a Red Admiral flutter above a salad piled high in a gardener’s straw hat.

Through the pages Lolly and her friends whip up delicacies for hoppy frogs and wiggly worms. When Nana finally calls them to lunch they see a table full of garden delights: carrot sticks, blueberries and blackberries, tomatoes fresh off the vine. Will they eat it? “Oh yes. Oh yes, yes, yes!”

“So what’s your best-ever never-fail mud pie recipe?” I asked Bloom the other day.

Referring to the garden delicacies in her book she answered, “Those are my best recipes for mud pie and dirt dessert. My geologist son, however, has informed me that the correct term is soil, not dirt. But,” she mused, “that just doesn’t have the same ring to it!”

I love Bloom’s books for their reading “fun factor” and Feeding Friendsies is no exception. I also love the way she brings the garden community to life - the butterflies and frogs and chickadees... and Bloom’s watercolors are pure delight.

Review copy provided by the publisher.