Illustrations show children and animals making and distributing cookies as a way to show how to act. For example, Open-minded means: "I've never seen cookies like that before, but, uh, sure, I'll try one" and Respect: means offering the very first cookie to your grandmother. Ends with a recipe.

Clever conceit, although some of the lessons were a bit of a stretch ("optimist is someone who looks at their half-cookie and says 'wow! I have half a cookie!' and pessimist is someone who looks at their half-a-cookie and says, "grumble grumble, I only have half a cookie!'". [return][return]I liked the illustrations -- "proud" especially sticks out in my mind, for the little girl whose chin is lifted proudly and who is pleased with her cookies. ( )

Simple text and illustrations describe lessons in life as a young girl bakes cookies and learns cooperation, patience, pride, compassion, trust, and more.

Author Amy Krouse Rosenthal explores a variety of emotions and themes in this cute picture-book, using the activity of baking cookies to define various complex concepts. Every word highlighted here, from proud to modest, fair to unfair, is related to how one makes, shares and/or consumes chocolate chip cookies...

Although these sorts of inspirational picture-books are not usually my cup of tea, I have to say that reading Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons was made more poignant for me by the knowledge that the author recently passed away, after writing a very moving piece about her husband in The New York Times. Leaving that aside, I can see this title coming in very handy, in exploring concepts relating to ethical behavior and emotional experiences with younger children. The artwork by Jane Dyer is colorful and appealing, depicting a diverse range of children, and a number of adorable animal companions. Recommended to anyone looking explicitly for children's books to use in the explorations of manners and morals. ( )

Summary: This book describes different characteristics or feelings (ex. honest, dishonest, courageous, trustworthy, respect, content) using cookies to describe them.
Genre: I would say this book is informational because it teaches kids about what different characteristics/ qualities are by giving examples that they can understand. The illustrations in this book are fantasy though. Throughout the book the images show animals doing human things.
Medium: water color and pen/ colored pencil
Age Appropriateness: Primary
Use in a classroom: I would use this book in the younger grades to teach them about qualities. We could then determine what qualities would be good and bad, then see how we want those qualities shown in the classroom. This would be a good book to read in the first week of school to get those standards set.