How Are You Peeling?: Foods With Moods

Who hasn't looked at a fruit or vegetable and seen a funny face? In How Are You Peeling?--by the creator of the whimsical Play with Your Food--the "natural personalities" of produce are enhanced with black-eyed pea eyes and the occasional carved mouth--then photographed in vivid colors. One page reveals a wistful-looking poblano pepper being comforted by a cheerful red tomato, while another shows the amused, confused, frustrated, and surprised expressions of a green pepper, red pepper, orange, and apple. Adults and children alike will marvel at the range of expressions these fruits and vegetables possess--did you know just how many faces a kiwi could have? With simple rhymed text describing the emotions ("How are you when friends drop by?/ With someone new... a little shy?"), this appealing picture book is bound to spark discussion with young children. Parents can use it to talk about different emotions or to help children to identify and articulate their mood of the moment. Adults will just plain be amused. (Click to see a sample spread. Copyright 1999 by Play with Your Food, LLC. Used by permission of Scholastic Inc.) (Ages 2 to 6) --Richard Farr

In the fertile mind of artist/sculptor Saxton Freymann, a cauliflower is a poodle, an artichoke is a wolf, a banana is an octopus, and a pumpkin is just about anything. Fruits and veggies - meticulously carved, then photographed - are his special gift to the bountiful world of children's literature. "What's great about food," he says, "is that it keeps all of the photos fun." Freymann lives in New York City with his wife and three children, all of whom are very healthy, he says, because they eat the cast of characters he works on. For more information about Saxton Freymann, visit: scholastic.com/tradebooks Born in The Netherlands to artist parents, Joost turned his creative energy to food in 1976, when he became fascinated with the garnishes used by Japanese sushi chefs. The result was Play With Your Food, his first collaboration with Saxton Freymann, and a bestseller for the whole family. Joost believes that if you can open children's eyes and thinking with things they can understand and duplicate - like food creations - a new range of creativity opens up. "Then," he says, "you can take them to a museum."