Pizza!: An Interactive Recipe Book

This is probably one of our most favorite interactive series of all time.  It’s a great one to pair with kids’ first cooking experiences, with opportunities to talk about the sequencing of a recipe and the rich language associated with food (all those adjectives, verbs, ingredient names, colors, textures).  It also provides concrete  and experiential math (quantity, measuring and fractions) and science (reactions, cause and effect).  Our strangely and unexpectedly favorite part of this book is the squishy textured dough, which Lotta Nieminen and the Phaidon team executed pretty brilliantly.

Who’s excited for the next book in the Cook in a Book series due out in October?  Any guesses about the starring food?

Pizza!: An Interactive Recipe Book was created by Lotta Nieminen and published by Phaidon Press.

Kat Writes a Song

Kat will remind you of the someone in your life whose sunny disposition always seems to cheer you up in their easy, effortless way.  If you’re blue, let Kat sing you a song.

Kat Writes a Song was written and illustrated by Greg Foley and published by Little Simon.

Not One Damsel in Distress: Heroic Girls from World Folklore

This week we’re reading — and loving — this collection of folk tales from around the world.  Here’s an excerpt from Jane Yolen’s open letter to her daughter and granddaughters that starts off the book:

“This book is for you because in it are folktales about regular sword-wielding, spear-throwing, villain-stomping rescuer-type heroes who also just happen to be female.  About women who use weapons or their wits or a combination of both to get away from danger or disaster.  Stories that range from the medieval armored knight Bradamante to the magic-wielding African Nana Miriam, from the Jewish pirate princess to the serpent-slaying daughter of a Japanese samurai.”

The stories in Not One Damsel in Distress: Heroic Girls from World Folklore were collected and told by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Susan Guevara and published by HMH Books for Young Readers.  This is a reissued edition with the original published in 2000.

I Feel Teal

Describing how we feel can be nebulous and sometimes we’re at a loss for words.  Enter I FEEL TEAL — the loveliest, multi-hued look at feelings — from sunny and blithe to gloomy and gray.  Brilliant, novel and fresh.  This one feels golden to us.

I Feel Teal was written by Lauren Rille, illustrated by Aimee Sicuro and published by Beach Lane Books.

In-Between Things

We’ve been fans of Priscilla Tey’s work for quite a while now, and are excited to see her debut picture book in which she introduces readers to the world of the in-between.  Her clever rhyming text goes beyond the concrete and obvious spatial concepts as she encourages readers to explore much more.  “Keep looking, eyes open, and in-between things will come clear.  All kinds of wacky and weird will appear.”  It’s a smartly written and layered story, and intriguing in the way the concept of in between is explored.  A pretty fantastic debut, if you ask us.

In-Between Things was written and illustrated by Priscilla Tey and published by Candlewick Press.