I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato

 By Lauren Child

I was underwhelmed by this one.  It's won awards and has its own show and everything.  It's one of those 'teach your kids to eat' books.  I guess it's better than most.

 The art is a mixture of simple line drawings and collage.  It's okay, but it's a pretty dated look.

The premise is an older brother making up names and origins for ordinary food items in order to make them interesting and appealing to his younger sister.  The ideas are okay.  The behaviour is mostly plausible.

Of course the little girl eats every single thing.

I'm just really bored by this type of book at this point.  There are so many of these.

I don't think I'll bother with any of the other books in the series.

La Chenille qui Fait des Trous

 By Eric Carle

I always hated this book when I was a kid.  The first time it was read to me was in kindergarten.  We read it every time we went to the library for the next two years, except for the times that we read "I'll Love You Forever", which I also hated.  I hated it because it was a baby book and I was so tired of listening to my teachers fawn over it forever.  I was getting into chapter books for crying out loud.

But it is a great baby book.  I like reading it now.  And it's fantastic to have a copy in English and in French.  My daughter likes reading it in either language, because she already knows all her foods, so she understands at least a third of it. I'm hoping she'll start learning her days of the week soon.  We read both copies over and over.  I'll have to buy the French one soon.

We're Going to the Farmers' Market

 By Stephan Page

You know me.  I'm a pretty big hippie.  And I'm all about fruits and veg and farmers' markets.  But I picked this book up primarily because the art was appealing.  It was the nicest looking book at the library that week and, believe me, I looked through each one.  I thought maybe my son would recognize the food and be mildly interested.  Plus it's in verse, and he will currently only sit still for board books with verse.

Well, the verse is not metered.  They tried and failed.  Badly.  So my son hated it because he's so damn picky.

 But the pictures are still nice.  Lots of geometric  shapes and symmetry and simple colours and patterns.  It's very pretty.

I wish there was no text.  They tried to do a version of "To Market, To Market to Buy a Fat Pig" and got lost in this sustainability message.  It's so heavy handed that it felt like they were trying to make my children feel bad for straying from the 100 mile diet.

Plus, this meal.  Like, I would eat that, sure.  And I always serve good food for my kids.  We eat food from just about any culture and keep a variety of spices in the house.  But my one year old is not eating fish and olives.  In fact, he's teething and refuses anything that isn't blended into mush and snuck into his mouth in between bites of cracker.  And furthermore, with a baby in the house, is it possible to make labour intensive meals?  No, really, I'm curious.  When do I get to stop making casseroles?  Also, I don't take kids to market under the age of 3 if I can help it because grabbing groceries and paying for them with an angry toddler in your arms is the worst experience.

Is this a board book that teaches toddlers about everything they're missing out on because they can't get it together and eat real food and behave at the store?  Or is this is a board book for 6 year olds?  I can't decide.