Bread and jam

We haven’t found a lot of good kid’s books about food. The bibimbap book was pretty good, and there’s a series by Amy Wilson Sanger called World Snacks, the best of which is First Book of Sushi. It contains the immortal line, “Miso in my sippy cup, tofu in my bowl.”

But nothing beats Bread and Jam for Frances. I don’t know if Russell Hoban is a very hungry man or if he just understands that children are interested in the details of food. Even the Frances books that aren’t focused on food recognize that food is never far from the mind of a child (or certain adults). In A Baby Sister for Frances, for example, Frances decides to run away, but not before packing a snack of chocolate sandwich cookies and prunes.

_Bread and Jam_ features one of the best eating scenes in Western literature. I will quote a bit, and then you can get your own copy.

> He ate his bunch of grapes and his tangerine.
> Then he cleared away the crumpled-up waxed paper, the eggshell, and the tangerine peel.
> He set the cup custard in the middle of the napkin on his desk.
> He took up his spoon and ate up all the custard.
> Then Albert folded up his napkins and put them away.
> He put away his cardboard saltshaker and his spoon.
> He screwed the cup on top of his thermos bottle.
> He shut his lunch box, put it back inside his desk, and sighed.
> “I like to have a good lunch,” said Albert.

Can anyone recommend other good food-related books?

22 thoughts on “Bread and jam

  1. katre

    Once upon a time, Bread and Jam for Frances was my favoritest book. Now I have to go get a copy sometime between now and when Zameen is old enough for me to read to him.

  2. paul

    Absolutely! My three-year-old daughter, Stella, just discovered Francis about a month ago, and since then she’s demanded (and eaten) elaborate lunches replete with cheese sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs (which she wouldn’t touch before reading the book), tangerines, pickles, olives, and so on, all arrayed in front of her like the illustration in the book. She keeps demanding a little basket of cherries, like Francis has, and so far she has grudgingly accepted my explanation that they’re not yet in season (though I don’t know if she’s going to last until summer).

    We’ve also had good luck with Crepes by Suzette–a book about a little French girl who sells crepes in Paris, and that has a recipe in the back–and right now my kids are bonkers about The Bake Shop Ghost (though that’s all about cakes, and what kid wouldn’t go bazoonders about a book full of cakes, and a ghost who eats as many of them as she likes).

  3. mamster Post author

    Ah, we like the caterpillar too, although I have to say we haven’t come across any other Eric Carle books that we like.

    Ryan, I’m pretty sure I’ve read the jam sandwich, but I don’t remember it very well. I’ll place a hold. Amazon has it listed with Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs; I wonder if Iris is ready for that one?

    Paul, thanks for the recommendations. I will get them both from the library. I note that not only do you have a cool blog about cocktails, but you’re using the same WordPress theme as me, marking you as a person of character.

  4. dancinmikeb

    The one I remember most from kindergarten is something about stone soup. I recall it coincided with the day everyone brought something from home for the class to taste.

  5. Vince

    I’d forgotten about Stone Soup! We actually made “stone soup” in my kindergarten class…

    The other food-ish book we read is ‘No Carrots for Harry’. Cute story, may offend those who believe in the ‘clean plate’ ethic.

    RE Eric Carle books: the other one we like is ‘123 to the Zoo’, but I guess it’s kind of non-PC in this day and age. ‘The Grouchy Ladybug’ is a really awful book, full of anger and nastiness that isn’t completely undone by the ending.

  6. Judy (MOM)

    You all loved Blueberries for Sal and the muchly underappreciated Pickle Pickle Pickle Juice. We made Cranberry Cookies from a recipe at the end of some not great book.

  7. Wendy

    Strega Nona, by Tomie de Paola. Would that I had such a pasta pot.

    And we loved a book called [Popcorn](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0819310018/)… : Apparently there’re several picture books by that name, and other people remember a different one. Come to think of it, the story is very similar to that of Strega Nona; but Strega makes me hungry, and Popcorn used to make me feel a little ill.

    Eve Bunting wrote a charming book called The Big Cheese, but as I remember, the cheese isn’t really a major focus. Still, a good book.

    Peter Rabbit has some good eating.

    Note that Cloudy With a Chance… has some very scary pictures, up there with images of the Wicked Witch of the West, such as the picture of people with clothespins on their noses during the gorgonzola cheese storm.

  8. mamster Post author

    Wendy, is the Big Cheese a pop-up book? We have a pop-up book called The Fuzzy Peach that Iris loved for a while, and on the back it said there’s another book in the series call The Big Cheese, which we were curious about, but not curious enough to special-order it (I think it was out of print).

    The Fuzzy Peach is the most durable pop-up book of all time. Iris folded and tugged it with her usual force and I don’t think it’s lost a single piece.

  9. mary bennett

    Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder has long descriptive passages of food that fill the life of the boy growing up on a farm – with descriptions of cutting ice in the winter to keep in the icehouse for the summer lemonade, and lists of the meals that the farmers eat. Quite memorable even after many years. While it is aimed at older children than preschoolers, it might be a fun book to read outloud.

  10. Sushicat

    Bread and Jam for Francis was my favorite too! Still it is high up there as a book I read (to smaller people) and one I often give as a gift.

    Is Iris too young for Steingarten … It must have been something I ate has so many funny food things – and we have been reading it aloud to a slightly older set of kids … food for thought!

  11. Wendy

    Nope, this The Big Cheese is an ordinary picture book that reads a lot like a child’s version of something by LM Montgomery.

  12. Melissa

    The very best Stone Soup is the beautiful one by Jon Muth.

    Also good:

    Cook-a-Doodle-Doo by Janet Stevens

    The President and Mom’s Apple Pie by Michael Garland

    Sweet Tooth by Margie Palatini

    Arnie the Doughnut by Laurie Keller

    Gregory the Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmat

  13. mamster Post author

    Melissa, I’d never heard of most of your recommendations, which is great. I think Iris is going to love Arnie the Doughnut especially. We have another book with similar artwork called Stop That Pickle, about a pickle who gets away and it hunted down by various other foods including 17 toasted almonds. I’m not sure how I forgot to mention that book in the original post.

  14. Judy (MOM)

    What about The Pigeon Eats a Hot Dog. And have we all not read the Ice Cream chapter in Frog and Toad a lot in the past couple months?

  15. Andrew Feldstein

    I will ask my storytelling group about books for children, and report back. They are a great resource.

    What about books about food for adults? A minor passion of mine.

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