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READING STYLE GUIDE

What's Your Favorite Food?

3/28/2020

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What's Your Favorite Food? by Eric Carle and Friends

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The picture book What's Your Favorite Food? features Eric Carle and selected children's book illustrators responding to a simple query. Each artist describes a favorite food with a brief paragraph accompanied by a two-page spread of eye-popping art.
The book is a cornucopia of flavors from around the world. Strawberry daifuku, paella, and pitaya fruit are interspersed with universal favorites such as cheese, berries, and salad. Find kid-friendly fare: French Fries, ice cream, and pizza. It is fun to explore this potpourri of scrumptious food choices.
The colorful mix of art styles are visually arresting with an appealing melánge of realistic images and bold graphic design. Food is celebrated with illustrations employing collage, printmaking, painting, and line drawing. A delicious introduction to a variety of artists.
Final pages include a description of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, located in Amherst, Massachusetts. Royalties from the purchase of this book are donated to this nonprofit organization which promotes the art of the picture book. A brief biographical note accompanied by a childhood photo of each artist adds a personal touch.
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Let Them Eat Cake

Cake. We wanted cake. Today a chocolate cake would be especially nice. However, due to the current world situation, ingredients are in very limited supply. What to do? Then I remembered collage days and my roommate Delena. She had a good recipe for chocolate cake made without eggs, butter, or milk.  Cake is on the menu, thanks to Delena.
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Let's Get Baking

Delena's Chocolate Cake
Sift together:
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
6 Tablespoons cocoa
2 teaspoons baking soda
​1 teaspoon salt
Add:
2 teaspoons vinegar
3/4 vegetable oil
2 cups cold water
2 teaspoons vanilla
Mix liquid ingredients with sifted dry ingredients. Pour into greased and floured 9" x 13" pan.
​Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes. 
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When butter and eggs are plentiful, this scrumptious cake is my go-to chocolate sheet cake. Gooey, chocolaty goodness. The batter fills an oversize sheet pan. At my house we consume a lot of this cake, so the size is just right. The chopped pecans on top are the crowning touch.
​Find the recipe here.

What's Your Favorite?

Introducing three additional titles in the What's Your Favorite? picture book series. Discover more about the world and meet many talented artists in this colorful picture book series.
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​Copy provided by publisher
​Pub date: July 23, 2019  Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)   ISBN: 978-1250295149
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More than Bread

12/20/2019

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Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story
​by Kevin Noble Maillard ill by Juana Martinez-Neal

Native American is not a past history of a vanished people and communities. We are still here.
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This is a story of bread. But it's more than bread. Much more. This is a story of family. Of tradition. Of Native American pride.
Kevin Noble Maillard, member of Seminole Nation, Mekusukey Band shares a long-standing Indigenous special food: fry bread. Recipes for fry bread are as diverse as the numerous Native nations.
The sentence stem "Fry bread is..." introduces this delightful cultural staple. By turns it is food, shape, sound, color. flavor, time, history, place, nation, everything. Written in free verse, each concept fills the entire two-page spread. Replete with information and symbolism, each fry bread attribute is also a metaphor for Native Americans.
Familiar and foreign, old and new
We come together
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Martinez-Neal has captured the warmth and closeness of family. Notice the infant, carried in the arms of various family members. This child is a part of the extended family, happily content with mother, grandmother, siblings. Each shares responsibility for this little one. Note: the child seems comfortable with any and all members of the community.
Illustrations make clear that there is no typical Native American. An array of hair colors and textures, a vast range of skin tones, and an assortment of various generations are all Indigenous people. One individual is pictured wearing eyeglasses and another walking with a cane.
Personal connections are embedded throughout. Names of family members and others involved with the book's creation are scattered across one page, some of the names handwritten.  A picture of Aunt Fannie, who taught Maillard to make this traditional staple appears twice. 
The Author's Note is an important and integral part of the story. Page by page, Maillard annotates and amplifies each concept with personal reflections and anecdotes.  The Reference section is a numerated notated listing of sources. Maillard includes his recipe from fry bread. End papers are a bonus, enumerating large tribes, small tribes, rancherias, villages, and groups that have not yet received official status. 

Making Fry Bread

If there is one thing that all Natives can agree upon about fry bread, it’s that everybody else's version is wrong,
Fry Bread brings back warm memories. When I was a college freshman, one of my roommates, Norma, was a Navajo from Arizona. She was very proud of her nationality and delighted in sharing Navajo culture with her roommates. She loved to sing, but not the hit songs playing on the radio. She sang traditional Navajo songs, with distinctive tonal patterns, and language. In my mind, I can still hear her singing. She was gentle and patient with us, helping us appreciate the Navajo Way.
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For a treat, she would make us Navajo tacos. She never used a recipe. She just got out the flour and baking powder and went to work. Her recipe differed from Maillard’s. She didn’t use cornmeal or yeast.
​I tried to replicate Norma’s recipe. I’m sure that this isn’t exactly the same, but my family appreciated my efforts. They liked them sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. As I shared my memories of Norma, I realized that this experience with fry bread was a celebration of rich culture. It’s true. Fry Bread is more than bread.
Fry bread reflects the vast, deep diversity of Indian Country and these is no single way of making this special food.
​But it brings diverse Indigenous communities together through a shared culinary and cultural experience.
​That's the beauty of fry bread.
Copy provided by publisher.
Pub date: October 22, 2019  Publisher: Roaring Brook Press  ISBN: 978-1626727465
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It’s Cake Time

6/18/2019

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Pie in the Sky by Remy Lai

If cakes truly are magic, where did I go wrong?
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Jingwen, his younger brother Yanghao, and mother venture into the unknown, immigrating to Australia,  Mom works the night shift at a local bakery and Jingwen cares for his outgoing, impulsive younger sibling while she is away.
​It's hard. School is strange. He doesn’t understand what people are saying. Kids at school ignore him.  It’s like moving to Mars.
Relocation is exponentially difficult because his father is not with the family. Dad was killed in a car accident fourteen days before Jingwen’s birthday. This ten-year-old carries a heavy pocketful of resentment, guilt, and loneliness.
Jingwen decides that he will make all the cakes on his father’s list of dream cakes. He hopes recreation of all his father's desserts will bring ease his pain and "make everything better." This task requires money, numerous trips to the grocery store, purchasing ingredients with labels he cannot read, late nights of secretly baking and then consuming all the cake. To make all these confections without his mother's knowledge means some serious subterfuge as well as outright lies.
Lai ingeniously blends text and images. Both are essential essential story elements. Panels capture heart-wrenching moments as well as comical scenes. ​Encountering an unfamiliar culture and foreign language is brilliantly illustrated. A boy stands alone while those around him talk in words that resemble bizarre symbols couched inside speech balloons. At times some characters’ faces transform into monsters, revealing interior panic and fear.
Anyone with a sibling will relate to episodes where the brothers fight, appeal to mom to take sides, are jealous of the other. Like most relationships, there are moments when the boys plot and plan together and even forgive. It's easy to relate to these boys.
​There is a bonus: a recipe for Rainbow Cake can be found at the back of the book. This dessert is much more than a box cake mix. We're talking 14 eggs, separated and prepared individually before combining in a final step. It gave me added respect for Jingwen's ambitious plan to secretly create all the cakes. That's quite a feat.
And the cakes. O my, such cakes! Huge slices of almond chiffon cake with caramel sauce, chocolate raspberry torte, and pear tarte tatin with absolutely no tummy ache are the stuff dreams are made of. But it’s not all sweetness. Pie in the Sky tackles difficult subjects: immigration, grief, sibling rivalry, and language barriers as seen through the eyes of a ten-year-old. While pastry creation and relocating to Australia may be unfamiliar to readers, the emotions are universal. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll definitely want a slice of cake.

Strange Territory

More books where images forming an integral part of the stories of kids coping with strange new environments
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Uncorrected copy provided by publisher.
Pub date: May 14, 2019  Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)  ISBN: 978-1250314093
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Bake Your Heart Out

11/20/2018

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Sweet Revenge: Passive-Aggressive Desserts for Your Exes & Enemies
by Heather Kim

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The holidays are upon us.  This may mean strained relationships. Stress with a capital S. Maybe it's time to throw  out the calorie count and indulge in decadent desserts. Sweet Revenge: Passive-Aggressive Desserts for Your Exes & Enemies has you covered.
This tantalizing cookbook is fun to read. Text is replete with clever turn-of-phrase and precisely the right amount of snark. 
It's a visual treat as well.  Book design has a slightly edgy feel with bold fonts, quirky graphic elements and eye-popping photographs.
Heather Kim states in her introduction that this volume is first and foremost a cookbook. So let’s talk food: not your standard chocolate chip and snickerdoodle fare. The recipes are inventive, and some are downright dangerous. Consider these: Pretzel-Peanut-Butter Cups, Cannoli Waffles with a candied Pistachio topping, Coconut Mochi Cake with Coconut Sesame-Pecan Icing, Carrot Cake Truffles with Cool Ranch Doritos Sugar.  Some venture into truly innovative: Elvis cupcakes (banana cake, peanut buttercream frosting and butterscotch candied bacon) or Flamin' Hot Cheetos Ice Cream Sandwiches.
I tried the S'more Brownies.  It's basically a brownie topped with squares of homemade marshmallow and  graham cracker streusel.  There's a nice hint of cinnamon in the cracker/butter mixture.  Now the fun: toast the  fudgy little squares with a torch or under the broiler. Watch them lightly brown. Then devour.  Taste-tested by a panel of teens and adults, we all agreed that these are yummy!
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Heather Kim is an adroit author.  She taps into teen social drama and offers concrete suggestions for coping with rejection. Her premise is that when a breakup occurs, get into the kitchen and whip up something new and different.  Then she suggests two possible options:  Wrap up the goodies and deliver them to your ex,  i.e. "kill with kindness." Or go the alternative route and eat your creation.  Savor each bite.  Because life is too short to waste on self-pity.  Either way, the result will be delicious.
I shared this with a teen who loves to cook, especially complicated desserts, and had recovered from a devastating breakup. He started leafing through the pages and smiled knowingly when he encountered phrases such as: "Like sweet and salty, opposites attract...except when they don't."
This makes the perfect gift for anyone experiencing the pain of a breakup.  It's therapy with a mixing spoon.  Go bake your heart out!
Copy provided by publisher.
Pub date: January 1, 2018 Publisher: Switch Press ISBN: 978-1630790899
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Ode to Joy

4/18/2018

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The Joy of Cookies: Cookie Monster's Guide to Life by Cookie Monster

This concept is brilliantly delicious. The tempting treatise begins with a Joy of Cooking title homage,  cookie bite cutout, and dedication to Grandma Monster who inspired a love for milk and cookies.  Seriously, is there anyone anywhere who doesn't enjoy a cookie? Who can resist this clever ode to a universally-loved treat?
I am a self-avowed cookie baker and cookie lover.  After reading this book, it was time to head to the freezer and locate my stash of "emergency cookies."  There were some chocolate chip, one half of a giant oatmeal raisin, a few lemon sugar cookies, one salted chocolate caramel, and some raspberry-filled linzer hearts. The makings of a cookie photo shoot.  My images are not professional quality. Nonetheless the intriguing possibilities of pairing my home-baked goodies with selected pages inspired me to try and capture the essence of Cookie Monster's Guide to Life.
I want to purchase additional copies of The Joy of Cookies and pair with batches of homemade treats. Note: If you don't have your own favorite recipe, instructions for Sugar Cookies, Double Chocolate Cookies, and Monster Cookies are included within the pages. These cookie/book pairings will be for friends who need a little joy in their lives.  Fresh cookies and Cookie Monster's wisdom make the perfect gift for any occasion. 
Just like a warm cookie, this book begs to be shared. Grab a cookie (or two), a glass of cold milk, and read this book with a friend.  Thanks Cookie Monster, for making my day a bit brighter.
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Bonus: In place of the standard "All rights reserved" and copyright statement found in every published work, take a look at  Cookie Monster's assertion found on the verso:
​"Me the only Cookie Thief in this here town. So no steal cookies! And no steal book about cookies! Or terrible cookie curse fall upon you: Cookie forever taste like dust in mouth. Fate worse than diet."
Review based on copy provided by the publisher
Pub date: April 10, 2018       Publisher: ​Imprint    ISBN: 978-1250143419
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Pastabilities

2/7/2017

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ABC Pasta: An Entertaining Alphabet by Juana Medina

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Medina has done it again! ABC Pasta: An Entertaining Alphabet follows up on 1 Big Salad: A Delicious Counting Book with artfully designed pages that combine stunning photos with clever illustrations to create another picture book filled with WOW!
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​This alphabet book is a primer for budding pasta enthusiasts.  A shopping trip to the market's pasta aisle will open minds to exciting design, alphabet, and gastronomic possibilities.
As a bonus Medina includes a recipe for Cacio e Pepe

​So long same-old alphabet soup. Goodbye boring blue box Mac & Cheese. This is the way pasta was meant to be enjoyed!

Companion Books

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1 Big Salad: A Delicious Counting Book by Juana Medina
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Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola
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More Spaghetti, I Say by Rita Golden Gelman
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Freshly Baked 

10/24/2016

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Nanette's Baguette by Mo Willems


It's frogs. It's France. It's the irresistible aroma of freshly baked bread. It's an understanding mother. It's eye-popping illustrations. It's wordplay and rhyming.
​
It's Nanette's Baguette.  

​It's Mo Willems at his best.
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​How many words rhyme with baguette?

Ready. Set. Go.
​Start with...
Nanette  Juliette regret  beset  yet  forget  pet  wet  get  jet, quartet Georgette  Suzette  Bret  clarinet  Antoinette...
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​Check out this stop motion video of Willem's paper-crafted recreation for the French village that is featured in his latest picture book.
​C'est magnifique!
Fun Things to Do:
  • Using small milk cartons and other boxes, make a paper model of your own community.
  • Learn about baking bread. Try making mini-loaves of bread, either from scratch or from frozen bread dough. Use all the senses to see, smell, touch, taste, and eat the bread. Discover what makes freshly-baked bread irresistible.
  • Discover rhyming words. Make your own display of rhyming words, maybe with a cloud of words, either with colored paper or digitally.​
  • ​Read the book to a friend and share your favorite words, sounds, pictures. Then let your friend read the book to you and discover your friend's favorite words, sounds, and pictures.
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Cooking by the Book

6/10/2016

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Ten Treats Inspired by Childrens Books

I entered the ALSC sponsored Top Ten contest by combining two of my favorite things: food and children's literature. This list is limited to sweet treats found in books for young people.
​Some recipes are created by the book's author. Other desserts are inspired by some of my favorite books for young readers. Bon Appetit!
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Cinnamon Apple Pie
Inspired by The Good-Pie Party by Liz Garton Scanlon illustrated by Kady Macdonald Denton.
I discovered this recipe years ago in the local newspaper. Instead of ground cinnamon, it is flavored with cinnamon oil.
Tastes like a cinnamon candy apple.
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Cherries in the Snow
recipe is found in The Truth About Twinkie Pie by Kat Yeh.
Kat's book is chock full of fun recipes. Here is the dessert named after a lipstick color. I opted for individual serving goblets instead of the suggested large bowl. This made a visually stunning and refreshing ending to a meal.
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Watermelon Limeade Float recipe is located in A Clatter of Jars by Lisa Graff
Similar to the original cake recipes she included in A Tangle of Knots, Graff offers a variety of beverages in her latest magical middle grade book which features frogs, friendship bracelets, and of course, jars.
Next I want to try making the Camp Atropos Sunset Punch.
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Warm Gingerbread
There is nothing quite like squares of warm gingerbread, fresh from the oven. I like to top mine with fruit and whipped cream. (I like peaches, my husband prefers pears. Both are good.)
​It's the perfect accompaniment to Gingerbread for Liberty written by Mara Rockliff and illustrated by Vincent X. Kirsch.
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Freezer Strawberry Jam
This is a family tradition. Every year I mix up quantities of strawberries and sugar and then store jars of this fresh summer-tasting jam iin our freezer.
Just like Russell Hoban and Lillian Hoban's Bread and Jam for Frances, you'll want more of this.
The easy recipe can be found on a box of Sure Jell Fruit Pectin.
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Apple Tart
I had never made an apple tart in my life. But after reading Sarah Moore Fitzgerald's The Apple Tart of Hope I had to try. I used Ina Garten's recipe for French Apple Tart. It was so easy - even the pastry was a breeze. Although there is no cinnamon in this recipe and Fitzgerald's book is replete with references to cinnamon, it is an excellent dessert.
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Caramel Corn
My friend from New Jersey shared with me this recipe from her mother in Michigan. Now my family in Texas makes it every year and sends to relatives out of state. Caramel Corn reminds me of Frank Asch's Popcorn, an all-time favorite read aloud.
Children never tire of reading this classic. Like the caramel corn, it is always a hit.
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Homemade Ice Cream Drumsticks
I finally figured out how to make my own ice cream drumsticks and they are so so good.
I use a variety of chocolate: milk, dark, or bittersweet to match the flavor of ice cream that I use: from homemade vanilla to pistachio. I love to compliment the flavors with a variety of nuts and crushed candy toppings. The
Ice Cream Summer described by Peter Sis never has to end.
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Party Cupcakes
Sara Varon includes lots of yummy recipes in her graphic novel Bake Sale. Be sure to check them out.
I use easy white and chocolate cake cupcake recipes from Southern Living when I make cupcakes for a crowd, Its fun to mix/match frosting and toppings for variety.
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Molasses Sugar Cookies
This is my mother's recipe. Soft and chewy, they are perfect with a glass of milk.
It's difficult for anyone to eat just one. I'm certain that the Mouse featured in  If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff and illustrated by Felicia Bond would definitely be going back for a seconds.
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Sipping Summer

5/24/2016

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A Clatter of Jars by Lisa Graff
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A Clatter of Jars and A Tangle of Knots share a familiar vibe. Lisa Graff has crafted another middle grade tale with multiple story threads which intially seem unconnected, family secrets, a generous sprinkling of magic, and bonus recipes. Readers will appreciate the fact that instead of heating up the oven by baking cakes, they are treated to directions for concocting smoothies, punches, ice cream floats, and more.
Her original recipes add to the refreshing story line and are a delicious accompaniment to summer reading.
I lined up some jars in the kitchen and gave a few of these beverages a try.
The family opinion: Very tasty!

Sip summer as you try to unravel the secrets hidden in A Clatter of Jars.

Lily's Watermelon Limeade Float

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"reminiscent of all the best birthday parties
"Memory is a curious thing. Some details stick in our minds like peanut butter on crackers, and refuse to budge, as much as we might wish they would. Other memories - heavy ones sometimes, ones that seem unbudgeable - can be plucked right out when we least expect it. Lost memories leave remnants, of course, flavors that linger in the mind, but it's difficult to taste things when you don't know they're there."
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All memories have a flavor, although not everyone can taste them."

Chuck's Frozen Mint Hot Chocolate

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"reminiscent of a cool swim on a hot day"
"Some memories hit like a wallop, all of sudden, and hard. Other times, for no reason that anyone can explain, memories take much longer to sink in. They seem to meander a bit before choosing which mind to settle into."

​"There was a hint of something lingering in her mind. A memory, perhaps, although Jo could only catch the flavor of a few remaining tendrils."

Renny's Orange Cream Smoothie

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"reminescent of quiet nights on empty piers"
"Chuck clenched and unclenched her hand, trying to push away the memory of that look on Ellie's face, sad and small and stricken. But it was stuck in Chuck's mind like peanut butter on crackers."
  "Jars.  Lily saw, searching the water...The sight was delicious and frightening both at once..."

Companion Book

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A Tangle of Knots is the obvious choice here. It is included on the 2013 National Honor Book Award longlist and an absolute charmer!
Another Lisa Graff book to love.
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Pickle Power

2/17/2016

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Strolling down the condiments aisle of my grocery store...  
​Wait! What's that sitting between the Zesty Dill Spears and the Bread & Butter Stackers?  
Why it's Phil Pickle, the inventive picture book written by Kenny Herzog and illustrated by Kelly Canby.
This charming story is chock full of clever puns and word play that underscore the message of believing in yourself and following your passion. 
Because everyone, even a pickle, can dream.
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"What was I thinking?" he thought to himself...
​"I'm nothing but a glorified condiment."
"He became an inspiration to pickles everywhere."
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    Barbara Moon

    I like talking about books and  interesting ideas. I like thinking about how books affect my life. Not particularly interested in giving out stars or in rating books. 

    Audio Publishers Association
    2013, - present  Audies judge 
    American Library Association Book Awards and Lists 
    ​2017 YALSA Award Nominating Committee
    2016 Excellence in Nonfiction 
    2014 Margaret Edwards Award
    2012 Odyssey Awards.  
    2009, 2010, 2011 Great Graphic Novels for Teens.

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