Children's Gardening Books Archives -

Cookbooks for Kids – Plant, Cook, Eat!: A Children’s Cookbook

August 19, 2021
goodreadswithronna
Ages 7-10, Children's Book Reviews, Cookbooks, Middle Grade Book Review, Middle Grade Nonfiction

PLANT, COOK, EAT!: A Children’s Cookbook

by Joe Archer and Caroline Craig

(Charlesbridge; $18.99, Ages 7-10)

★Starred Review – Kirkus

Joe Archer and Caroline Craig’s middle-grade Plant, Cook, Eat!: A Children’s Cookbook covers food from seed to table with easy-to-understand text and full-color photos or images throughout. The helpful introduction includes information about plants: what parts we eat, how they reproduce, and how we can help them grow with the right amount of warmth, light, nutrients, and water. Learn what healthy soil and compost consist of, then how to choose and prepare an ideal location for your garden. Before long, you’re ready to harvest, eat, and cook.

Plant Cook Eat! int1 — Interior spread from Plant, Cook, Eat!: A Children’s Cookbook by Joe Archer and Caroline Craig, Charlesbridge ©2021.

Whether it’s tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, or peas, you’ll find an accompanying recipe where that food shines as a star ingredient. Snip some young zucchini then make crunchy Zucchini and Polenta Fries, or dig up those beautiful beets for an indulgent Chocolate Beet Cake.

Plant Cook Eat!_int2 — Interior spread from Plant, Cook, Eat!: A Children’s Cookbook by Joe Archer and Caroline Craig, Charlesbridge ©2021.

I like how cookbooks provide recipes to take us beyond our usual fare. This book, however, goes steps beyond by inspiring us to grow vegetables, maybe for the first time. We transformed our abundant crop of Swiss chard into Chard-Noodle Stir-Fry; our towering kale became Kale Pesto Pasta—an appreciated change from the usual basil-dominant pesto.

Plant Cook Eat int3 — Interior spread from Plant, Cook, Eat!: A Children’s Cookbook by Joe Archer and Caroline Craig, Charlesbridge ©2021.

Kids will enjoy the rewarding experience of eating what they’ve grown whether directly from the plant or in a delicious recipe. One of my favorite facts was that cranberry beans are cultivated for their dried seeds; they’re ready to harvest when you give the pods a shake and the beans rattle inside. We’re planting that next!

Reviewed by Christine Van Zandt (www.ChristineVanZandt.com), Write for Success
(www.Write-for-Success.com), @ChristineVZ and @WFSediting, Christine@Write-for-Success.com

Joe Archer, co-author

Joe Archer works at Kew Gardens as Head Horticulturalist in the kitchen garden and has appeared on BBC in the Kew on a Plate television program with Raymond Blanc. He lives in England.

Caroline Craig, co-author

Caroline Craig is a food writer from London and the author of The Little Book of Lunch adult cookbook (Regan Arts) and The Cornershop Cookbook (Random House UK). She’s also a columnist for Guardian Cook. She lives in England.

Picture Book Review – A Green Place to Be: The Creation of Central Park

April 26, 2019
goodreadswithronna
1800s, Ages 7 and up, Ages 7-10, Arbor Day, Biography, Children's Book Reviews, Education & Reference, Juvenile Nonfiction, Nature & The Natural World, Nature & the Natural World, New York, People & Places, U.S.A., United States

A GREEN PLACE TO BE:
The Creation of Central Park
Written and illustrated by Ashley Benham Yazdani
(Candlewick Press; $17.99, Ages 7-10)

book cover illustration from A Green Place to Be by Ashley Beham Yazdani

Ashley Benham Yazdani’s A Green Place to Be: The Creation of Central Park shines a light on a familiar subject in a new way. This historical nonfiction picture book gives a glimpse into 1858 New York City when the park’s design contest was held. Architect Calvert Vaux and park superintendent Frederick Law Olmsted teamed up to win.

Yazdani’s images capture the vast undertaking as Vaux and Olmsted draft the layout, called Greensward. I like the spread of the ten-foot-long drawing envisioning what could be done with the land. Though their design was entered after the deadline, they won but had to change the name to New York City’s Central Park.

Olmsted planned ahead—about 100 years ahead—using “the color and shape of each plant to create illusions in the landscape” so nature would be the focus for generations yet to come. “Amenities such as the Dairy were specifically built to help those living with less, and Olmsted’s and Vaux’s compassion for others is shown by their determination to create a park that welcomed all social classes.” The men were early environmentalists striving to conserve this patch of parkland in Manhattan.

Kids who like construction-type books will appreciate that boulders were blasted to bits. Nearly every piece of the swampy, sharp, and foul-smelling land was raised or lowered, rocks were relocated and reused. Thought was given on how to best move people through the park without disturbances from carriages.

The end matter sums up the lives of Olmsted and Vaux. A page of interactive questions with items kids can search for within the book adds an element of interactive fun. More detail is given on Seneca Village, the area of land which had to be cleared for the park. The freed African-Americans who lived there were first offered money, then forced out—a sad beginning to this story.