Food is a relatable topic that we often encounter in picture books -- sometimes it's viewed practically, other times in a silly way, or both. There are plenty more that could be included here, but these are some of our favorites:

Pancakes Pancakes! is an Eric Carle book I didn't encounter until I was an adult, but I enjoyed it and the kids did too. It takes a fairly "practical" look at how pancakes are made. If you can suspend enough disbelief to allow that a boy named Jack and his mother just happened to be out of every single pancake ingredient, then it makes sense that before he can have pancakes for breakfast, Jack must take wheat to the mill to be ground into flour, milk the cow, churn some butter, fetch an egg, etc. Once he collects everything, his mother walks him through the process of combining the ingredients and cooking his first pancake. It usually succeeds in making me feel hungry by the end!

I'll admit, Green Eggs and Ham is not one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books, but it's a classic, and I'm pretty sure all the kids I've read it to have enjoyed it. Perhaps the repetition has gotten to me over the years. But I can appreciate that it encourages kids to try something before outrightly declaring that they do not like it. Either that or it encourages pestering someone to the point of insanity if they won't do what you want them to do -- decide for yourself.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, by Judi Barrett and Ronald Barrett, is one of my favorite "tall tale" picture books ever. It's the legend of a town called Chewandswallow, where food falls from the sky. This allows for endless possibilities of weird weather, and also some interesting problems and other effects that would go along with this kind of phenomenon. Eventually, the food-weather gets weirder and larger, making life unsustainable for the brave inhabitants, and they are forced to flee. This is the best kind of picture book because the general idea can spur your creativity long after reading it -- what other kinds of food can we imagine falling from the sky? And what kinds of possibilities and problems would that lead to?

The Seven Silly Eaters is a clever story written in polished rhyme by Mary Ann Hoberman, which tells the story of a growing family of picky eaters -- each child has one particular food that they have to eat in a certain way in order to be happy. Fortunately, it's silly enough that it's easy to overlook real-world consequences of such things and to enjoy the way that the family and story both grow -- until finally, when their long-suffering mother is worn to the bone, the children accidentally invent a dish that makes life a whole lot easier for all of them. Full review here.

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World takes a similar approach to Pancakes Pancakes! above, in the sense that all ingredients for the dish in question must be acquired from their sources, but this time it's done in a much more fantastical way. This book is written from a second-person point of view, which is fairly rare (the only other in this style that comes to mind at the moment is How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World which is more educational but a bit fantastical too). In this book, you are instructed to go to the market to get ingredients for your pie, but if the market is closed, then you must jet off to Sri Lanka (to get cinnamon from the bark of a kurundu tree), England, Italy, Vermont, etc. to find only the best ingredients to make into an apple pie. It's a fun read, and at the very end there is a recipe to make your own apple pie.

You Belong Here is a beautiful, well-written poem that affirms a child's sense of "belonging" with their parent(s). The text compares the way that different kinds of animals belong in their unique environments with "you" belonging here with "me." The last verse emphasizes that even though the child may travel and see the world, that won't stop them from belonging. (Even though this is assumed to be written from a parent-to-child perspective, the pronouns are vague enough that it could be applied to other situations too.)

The illustrations are so beautiful, using a lot of earth tones to set up lovely contrasts and depictions of the natural world. In fact, I really can't think of anything that could make this book better. It would make a great gift for any young child, and especially children who are adopted or in mixed families. 

Scrounged From: Amazon (a present for our three-year-old)

Format: Hardcover
Author: M.H. Clark
Illustrator: Isabelle Arsenault
Pages: 32
Content Advisory: None

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Florence & Leon is an unusual picture book in that it is pretty much a quirky romance story (not something I often see in picture books, but perhaps it's more common in French ones, as this was originally published in French), and while it's written at a level that children can understand, I imagine it would appeal more to teens and adults, though I could be wrong. 

I do like the visual of the straws that each person uses to describe their particular physical difficulty, and the connection they make because of it. That's an aspect that older children might be able to appreciate, especially with a common object being used as an illustration. 

Perhaps it's cheesy in places, and it won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I thought it was cute.

(Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.)

Scrounged From: NetGalley

Format: Kindle
Author: Simon Boulerice
Illustrator: Delphie Côté-Lacroix
Pages: 32
Content Advisory: None

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Since the artwork can make or break a picture book, they can be a great way to introduce children to artistic concepts, as well as the joy of making art in the first place. Some of these books do that, and others focus on specific artists, but all help to bring art into a child's world and encourage experimentation.

1. Ish, by Peter Reynolds, is the story of a boy named Ramon who likes to draw -- until someone laughs at his artwork, and he suddenly realizes that nothing he draws looks exactly like it's "supposed" to. This is such a good topic to cover in a children's book because many children go through a stage where they begin to realize that their way of seeing the world is changing, and many abandon art at about that time. With some help, Ramon recovers his desire to create, realizing that "ish" is a better goal than "exact." Full review here.

2. One of my favorite picture books in recent  years is The Sky Painter by Margarita Engle. It tells the story of Louis Fuertes, a boy who was interested in birds and art from a young age, and found a way to combine his interests in the field of bird art. Not only did he produce a lot of art and go on expeditions all over the world, but he also learned to paint quickly instead of shooting birds with a gun and posing them. Full review here.

3. A unique book which actually points out some "mistakes" in the illustrations as well as the way they were dealth with, The Book of Mistakes (by Corinna Luyken) combines lovely pastels mixed with black, white, and gray to create a narrative that "zooms" out bit by bit on a bunch of interesting-looking characters in their treehouse. It really encourages us to remember that we all make mistakes, but that they can help us to grow.

4. The Iridescence of Birds is a poetic tribute to artist Henri Matisse by Patricia MacLachlan. The artwork in this book is especially lovely and incorporates elements from some of Matisse's more iconic images. While the book doesn't share major details of Matisse's life, the vignettes are enough to give us an glimpse of some of the reasons for why he painted what he did.

5. This is a fun one. Beautiful Oops!, by Barney Saltzberg, helps encourage kids to see their mistakes as opportunities by demonstrating it with torn paper, coffee stains, drips, smudges, and even crumpled paper. The illustrations are mixed media and very vibrant, and there are fun flaps to open to see the "before" and "after" of the possibilities. Full review here.

Bonus: For a fun and simple (though very tall) book to introduce children to art history, A Child's Book of Art by Lucy Micklethwait is a great choice. Paintings are organized around simple themes that would be familiar to young children: family, animals, seasons, as well as various places and means of transportation.

This Is Sadie is a really cute book about a girl with an active imagination. The lovely illustrations show us some of the things that she has been in her mind (mermaid, Mad Hatter, etc.), and some of her daily activities (reading, tree-climbing, pretending she has wings, etc.). Makes me miss being a kid! If there's one thing kids don't need to be taught, it's how to have an imagination, which is why this book feels like a celebration rather than a how-to.

(In compliance with FTC guidelines, I disclose that I received this book for free through LibraryThing Early Reviewers. I was not required to write a positive review.)

Scrounged From: A LibraryThing giveaway

Format: Board Book
Author: Sara O'Leary
Illustrator: Julie Morstad
Pages: 32
Content Advisory: None

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