Great Children's Food Books

[liri]

My favorite book when I was that age was called "Watch Out for Chicken Feet in your Soup" by Tomie dePaola. My mom and I always read it and then made bread dolls (simple bread braided around eggs with faces drawn on them) from the recipe in the back. I think I still have a photocopy of that page tucked away in one of my cookbooks..

[Mooshmouse]

Thought of a couple more.

Mmm, Cookies! by Robert Munsch. He's an excellent storyteller for kids from preschool through to about Grade 2.

And Alligator Pie by Dennis Lee. One of my own favourites as a kid.

[Suzanne Podhaizer]

Another food related Tomie dePaola book is Strega Nona, which features a magical pasta pot gone wild!

[suzilightning]

another one just came across the circ desk. i have told it many times back in the day when i did children's programming.

The Funny Little Woman retold by Arlene Mosel.

set in japan a woman who made the best rice dumplings. she follows one into the land of the oni where she is taken prisoner and made to cook for the oni with the help of a magic paddle. she escapes, taking the magic paddle with her and becomes the richest woman in japan from selling her dumplings.

[Pontormo]

All these years after putting on a children's play in Girl Scout camp and I can still remember:

"What shall we do about poor little Tigger?

If he never eats nuthin he'll never get bigger!

He doesn't like hunny or haycorns or thistles

Because of the taste or because of the bristles

And all the good things that an animal likes

Have the wrong kind of swallow

And too many spikes!"

Here's to Pooh!

[mizducky]

How about this one?

The Carp in the Bathtub - two kids fall in love with the carp their mother brought home to make into gefilte fish!

[Lurch]

I'd add Alphabet Soup. I picked up this book at the Herbfarm in Seattle, WA during a visit, where tthey had framed individual pages as artwork. I'm planning to do the same for my little girl's playroom.

[Curlz]

I just received one last week, and my niece and I have read it together about 5 times...it's called I Will Never NOT EVER Eat A Tomato, and I must explain: I hate fresh tomatoes. Throw 'em at me, cook them, whatever--but I just don't like raw tomatoes, and everyone finds this funny b/c I so love good food. SO...my stepmother, who is in the children's book business, sent this up with my dad. And of course, I found the title hysterical enough, but when I read it the first time, I genuinely laughed.

In short, big bro Charlie is finding ways to get little sister Lola to eat her veggies. As in (I'm paraphrasing) "Those aren't carrots, Lola...they're orange twiggies from Saturn!" And of course, Lola eats all of these things and likes them. In the end, she asks for a bowl of moon squirters (tomatoes). I still say BLEAH, no matter what you call them...

Finally, in deference to my first love (see avatar), how could you have named the other books in this series, but forgotten If You Give a Moose a Muffin...?!?