Elizabeth Dennis

I tried a previous title in this series, but found the illustrations too retro for the topic (video games). However, I think it works quite well for cooking.

Simple, bright illustrations show kids and adults in a variety of skin colors and genders and short paragraphs suggest different careers for kids interested in cooking and food. The three chapters include cook and chef, recipe developer, and food stylist. Suggestions for different places to cook food, how kids can experiment with recipes, and the different places chefs work. The third chapter on food stylist talks about how this career involves carefully choosing, cooking, and presenting ingredients. I'm a little skeptical about the claim that "In the past, food stylists used unsafe things like glue to make food look perfect." Could you really eat the food you see in magazines or online? I'm... skeptical.

The book opens with a brief, simple bibliography and ends with a list of several other food jobs including farmer, food critic, and nutritionist.

Verdict: This is an additional title to your easy reader collection. It's a higher reading level, but for kids interested in different careers and jobs and in food (and most kids are at least somewhat interested in food) this is a nice addition.

ISBN: 9781534454545; Published December 2019 by Simon Spotlight; Borrowed from another library in my consortium; Purchased for the library… (mais)

My first thought was that this was just another fairy series, like the Rainbow Magic books. However, when I first read one, I found that they were much more than I had expected.

This story features the Marigold Fairy. All of the fairies in the land of the Flower Wings have magical powers from the flowers they belong to. Marigold, with dark skin, a tower of rich, curly, black hair, and a full skirt of bright yellow petals, takes after her flower. She keeps pests out of the garden and makes the vegetables grow big. She’s best friends with Butterfly and usually the pests all leave when they ask them to. But one day they discover a baby bunny is eating all their carrots! Are all pests bad? Can they learn to live with the pests and share with them?

Gardeners won’t be very amused by the solution, which involves all the pests participating in growing food together, but it fits in with the theme of friendship in the book. A final page talks about the “science behind the story” and explains how marigolds work, their uses in the garden, and the interaction between butterflies and marigolds.

The colors are bright and cheerful, with lots of brilliant greens and glowing yellows and oranges. The animals all look cute and cuddly (even the snails) and most of the text is clear and easy to read against the backgrounds. It’s a low level easy reader with a few more complex vocabulary words - in my library it gets a red sticker, which is for beginning readers, one step up from emergent readers with just one or two words per page.

Verdict: Although the story is kind of trite, the bright, cheerful pictures are very attractive and the addition of some facts makes this stand out from the usual fairy fare. Recommend to beginning readers who like fairies and animals and to fans of the Rainbow Magic easy readers.
ISBN: 9781534411746; Published 2018 by Simon Spotlight; Purchased for the library… (mais)