Poetry Book - Delicious! Poems Celebrating Street Food Around the World by Julie Larios

Illustrated by Julie Paschkis
found at Northeast Harbor Library

2021 Beach Lane Books

32 pgs.

Endpapers:  solid bright yellow

Goodreads rating:   3.63 - 24 ratings

My rating:  4 (5 for illustrations - one of my all-time favorite illustrators, and this book shows why)

My comments:  Brilliant and beautiful, glorious two-age spreads using color themed masterpieces to highlight each poem (can you tell I love the illustrations?)  What a perfect way to highlight a country and its culture!

NY, NY    

Oaxaca, Mexico

Jaffa, Irael

Marrakech, Morocco

Launcester, Tasmania, Australia

St. Petersburg, Russia

Lima, Peru

Mumbai, India

Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia

Seoul, South Korea

Athens, Greece

Dakar, Senegal

Beijing, China

Boston, Massachusetts

By the Sea

Jaffa, Israel

Orange Juice

in an orange cup

from an orange cart

with orange wheels --

and a big, BIG pile

of orange peels.

Goodreads: Journey around the world with this poetry collection celebrating delicious international street food!

          The world is a delicious place! Come along on an international journey to try a hot pretzel in New York City; saffron tea in Mumbai, India; deep fried scorpions in Beijing, China; and much, much more.
          This poetry collection celebrates all the different kinds of street food from around the globe, introducing young readers to snacks they know and ones they’ve never heard of—showing that no matter where we live, we all appreciate a yummy treat!

Big Jimmy's Kum Kau Chinese Take Out - Ted Lewin

Harper Collins, 2002
32 pages
For: gr. 1-4
My rating: 4
Endpapers: Colorful Chinese take out menu...mmmmm...

Ted Lewin's masterful portraits cover these pages with black font on yellow or light blue, orange and yellow font on black. His are some of my favorites - they really capture place and mood.

It's Saturday and a young boy is going to "help" his parents run their Chinese take-out on a busy street corner in Brooklyn, New York. Ted Lewin has fashioned this after a real Chinese Take Out - named Kum Kau ("gum-kow"), in his own neighborhood. It describes the eight various cooks chopping, steaming, preparing fresh meats and vegetables for the onslaught that begins when the metal doors rise from the sidewalk for the 11 o'clock opening. It has a cute ending, a self portrait of the author eating his favorite - Buddha's Delight, - and an excellent explanation of how the the book's illustrations were created.

Yum. Chinese takout for dinner, anyone?

Yum! MmMm! Que Rico! - Pat Mora

Poetry
America's Sproutings
Illustrated by Rafael Lopez
Lee & Low Books, 2007
$16.95
32 pages
Love the Illustrations.
Love the Interesting paragraph for each haiku.
Not crazy about some of the haiku.
Endpapers: Pumpkin orange

Discover the foods NATIVE to North and South America. There might even be a few surprises! A really informative, interesting, well-researched paragraph about each individual food sits in the left edge of the left page (black font on a rich orange...yellow....green....), a haiku about the same food sits on the right page. Illustrations are gorgeous - bold, bright, no white (the originals are acrylic on wood). Love 'em.

Blueberry --- Chili --- Chocolate --- Corn --- Cranberry --- Papaya --- Peanut --- Pecan --- Pineapple --- Potato --- Prickly Pear --- Pumpkin (look at all the P's!) --- Tomato --- Vanilla

CHOCOLATE

Fudge, cake, pie, cookies.
Brown magic melts on your tongue.
Happy, your eyes dance.

I teach haiku each year. It's great for figuring out syllables, stresses, rhythm. I always encourage the kids to get rid of any non-essential words by putting in a snazzier one. Also encouraged is adding a word to make sure that it paints the picture it needs to paint. We really work on having them make total sense. Some of the haikus in this book leave out words to the point that they don't really paint the picture they need to paint. Others will disagree, I'm sure.
Don't get me wrong - it's a great book. I'm just not crazy about some of the haikus.