Sweet as a Strawberry!

Review also includes:

Cool as a Cucumber!, 978-1840892277

These are wordbooks for children aged about two to five years with crystal clear photographs where you do not so much lift-the-flap as pull out the page. Each book presents and labels foodstuffs: Sweet as a Strawberry! introduces children to different kinds of fruit – pineapples, coconuts and lemons, while the subject of Cool as a Cucumber! is vegetables like potatoes, peas and mushrooms. As well as picturing the fruit or vegetable, labels are provided to extend vocabulary – so where the main picture is a lemon we find the labels ‘juicy’, ‘slice’ and ‘peel’, and where we have a main picture of a potato the labels include ‘chips’, ‘raw’ and ‘peelings’. Then, by lifting the flap, pictures are shown of foods having some qualities in common with the main one – so that a banana is ‘creamy’ and ‘smooth’ like mashed potato and celery is ‘noisy’ and ‘crunchy’ like toast. These robust little books would be a helpful addition to the nursery collection to encourage talk and to support early themes round food.