The Little Pigs' First Cookbook

Three pig brothers share simple, healthy recipes that very young cooks can prepare for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Grade 1-3 Brother pigs Charles, Bertram, and Ralph go through a day of living and eating in this attractive and clearly written beginning cookbook. Eighteen simple recipes represent breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert menus. All are nourishing and vegetarian, made from pure ingredients. There is one recipe per page, with safety hints and variations and a related nursery or folk rhyme. Helping adults may think that the ``playing with food'' aspect (for example, pig-related recipes, such as tomato and cottage cheese salad made in the form of a pig) is a bit much; but cooking sometimes is indeed playing with food. This is an inviting, light-hearted addition to the beginning cookbook collection. Carolyn Jenks, Oyster River Elem . School, Durham, N.H.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Charles, Bertram and Ralph are the little pigs, who are, respectively, an outdoorsman, a bookworm and a writerall just learning how to cook. Charles's breakfast menu features Yum-lish Yogurt and Boozled Eggs; Bertram's lunch menu includes Guinea Pig Salad and Blushing Pigs; Ralph's dinner menu offers up Seashell Melt and Piglet's Popovers. The recipes are clearly written, the food is appealing and healthful, and dessert is not overlooked. But the real treats are Watson's pictures, scenes of harmonious bustling with bright, bold shapes and sweet diagrams that help in the assembly of ingredients. The design is outstanding: small poetic asides, suggestions for alternate ingredients and definitions of some of the hard wordssuch as sauteare placed around the central instructions. Parents may have to help at some junctures, but they won't mindalthough the main course is cooking, it's served up with a spicy dose of fun. Ages 6-8.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.