Today I offer a banquet of books to feast your eyes on while contemplating leftovers… The Themes are: food, animals, cooking
The Sun Shines on the Jungle
by Michael Slack
board book; ages 3-5
Candlewick, 2022
The sun shines on the jungle.
Plants grow, reaching for the sun.
And then the munching begins. Beetles eat the leaves. Spiders eat the beetles. And before you know it you’ve got a full-fledged food chain on your hands!
What I like about this book: It is deceptively simple. Simple text with lovely illustrations showing one thing eating another. It’s not until you’re four spreads in that you begin to think: Hey! That animal ate the one I just saw on the previous page! But wait – there’s more.
Lifting the flaps, we can see inside the predators’ tummies. What a fun way to begin a discussion about who eats whom – perfect reading before any meal.
My kids always enjoyed cooking up things in the kitchen, whether it was messing around with pizza dough, tossing chips into cookie dough, or making their very first sandwich. We didn’t have a kid cookbook, so our culinary adventures were more … math and science labs (for want of a better description).
Now here’s a visual guide to cooking for kids who just might want to make their own snacks!
by Valorie Fisher
48 pages; ages 4-7
Astra Young Readers, 2023
The idea behind this book: illustrate recipes in a step-by-step fashion so kids who can’t yet read (and visual learners) can take some ownership of their kitchen adventure. And with recipes like these, who wouldn’t want to? Lime Fizz, pickled peanut, avocado smashup (something I made last night with no help, btw), easy-peasy pickles, and yummus – which is like avocado smashup but with chickpeas. And a lemon instead of a lime.
What I like about this book: It’s fun and kid-friendly, contains lots of math stuff and enough mashing and smashing to entertain anyone – but an adult needs to be nearby to help with the sharp stuff, the hot stuff, and the grindy stuff (blender). Also, there is Front Matter. A how-to-use-this-book page introduces symbols that indicate servings, time needed for the recipe (or a step) and a hand in a red circle to indicate “get help from a grown-up.” There’s a visual guide to tools used for measuring, mixing, cooking, and a wonderful guide on how to tell whether your muffins are done using the toothpick test. At the end is a page that shows things you can substitute – heck! I can think of a few adults who could use this book.
Since we’re talking about food and food chains, I could not resist this one!
Poop for Breakfast: Why Some Animals Eat It
by Sara Levine; illus. by Florence Weiser
32 pages; ages 5-10
Millbrook Press, 2023
Sounds disgusting, sure – but some animals eat poop. There’s even a name for this: coprophagy. And they do it for a number of surprisingly good reasons, says Sara Levine. For butterflies, it can help make their eggs stronger. To get grass- (and leaf and bark)-digesting bacteria into their guts, baby elephants eat droppings from their mom and other members of the herd. Some animals need food to travel through their digestive system twice so they … well, you get the picture.
What I like about this book: Each spread gives an example, and then in a sidebar provides a detailed explanation of how coprophagy is an adaptation for that animal. Final spreads show why it isn’t for humans. The language is easy to read, humorous in places, and never gets boring. Plus there is back matter that includes a visual field guide of scat and invites readers to be “poop detectives.” There's also a tongue-in-cheek textbox listing synonyms for poop. Not on the list: coprolite.
Beyond the Books:
Did you eat turkey on Thanksgiving? If it was a wild turkey it might have eaten acorns and berries, insects and snails – even a frog! And then you ate it. Can you draw a food chain for a wild turkey that ends up in your tummy?
Make something you like to eat. Maybe it’s a sandwich or pancakes, or maybe you love chocolate chip cookies. Whatever it is, help gather ingredients, measure things, mix … and definitely taste-test. Sometimes you have to test more than one (especially with cookies, right?).
You have probably seen signs of animals in your neighborhood: round pellets in the grass, maybe berry-laden scat near your garden. Wouldn’t it be great to know who was there? Here are a couple books that were written for young nature detectives: Tracks, Scats and Signs (Take Along Guides) by Leslie Dendy and Mammal Tracks and Scat: Life-Size Pocket Guide by my friend, Martha Mitchell (illustrator) and Lynn Levine.
Today we’re joining Perfect Picture Book Friday. It’s a wonderful gathering where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website.Thanks for dropping by today. On Monday we'll be hanging out at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with other bloggers. It's over at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copies provided by the publishers.
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