Reading Level: Grades 2-3 Interest Level: Grades K – 3
Nothing beats the smell of fresh chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven. This title takes readers through the creation of this delicious dessert, how it gained popularity, and the different forms it takes today. Recipes, a timeline, and other informative features represent information visually for learners of all types in this low-level read.
Readers will be ready to cook, eat, and learn after exploring these six titles, which describe their subjects in an appealing way. The books present a history of the food, the assembly process, the current trends, and two recipes. Each title contains a time line of the food’s history, a graphic depicting different shapes or styles of the food, a further reading section, a glossary, and an index. Photographs and illustrations, rendered in color or black and white, are included on each spread and are appropriately captioned. The authors’ efforts to expand world perspectives are evident with their inclusion of cultural variations of the featured food. Recipes contain instructions about adult supervision and standard and metric temperatures, but volume measurements are in standard. One recipe lists bacon as an ingredient for a grilled macaroni and cheese sandwich, but there are no instructions for cooking the bacon prior to adding it to the sandwich. VERDICT Budding foodies will likely devour these titles, which support social studies curriculums.
