PreSchool-Grade 1–Smiling oranges, mushroom “men”, pepper “people”, bananas that look like giraffes, eggplant penguins, and cauliflower sheep are just a few of the delightful food sculptures that grace the pages of this fun, educational offering.

Freymann explores various concepts including shapes, colors, numbers, letters, and opposites with the help of his signature vegetable and fruit characters. The concepts are well executed, and although the triangular carrot does not have perfectly straight lines, its shape is recognizable. Children will thoroughly enjoy the clever artwork and adorable characters.

The concept is similar in that fruits and vegetables are used to recreate things such as faces, animals or vehicles. It is quite different from fast food, however, in that this is more of a “dictionary”/”encyclopedia” type. There are several sections on letters, shapes, colors, numbers, etc. that are illustrated via the well-known fruits and vegetables. This makes this book considerably longer, and it lacks the rhymes of “fast food”. In its category, this is an awesome book. It shares the quality and beauty of “fast food”, the clever idea.

Each page is a new puzzle: H for Hair is easily identified as a leek (you might have to explain ‘leek’ to a child), root end up, but what are the ‘insects’? (blueberries with onionskin wings). The humor may occasionally go over a child’s head (look at X for X-ray) but that doesn’t matter, he will still love identifying the fruits and vegetables the characters are made of.

This is a wonderful book for group reading, children are captivated by the colors and illustrations and the large format makes it easy to see even for the children toward the back of the group. If you’ve liked others in this series you won’t want to miss this one.

Related Books:

1. Eat This, Not That! Thousands of Simple Food Swaps that Can Save You 10, 20, 30 Pounds–or More! – By David Zinczenko
2. The Instinct Diet: Use Your Five Food Instincts to Lose Weight and Keep it Off – By Susan B. Roberts Ph.D
3. The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution – By Alice Waters
4. How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition): 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food – By Mark Bittman