It is widely thought that by offering your baby a varied range of flavours and textures, they’ll grow up to be less fussy eaters. That’s all well and good, but if you’re struggling to work out how you will fit some bhel puri, quesadillas, knishes or collards into bub’s diet of mashed pumpkin and pureed pears, then let them feast their eyes on the very cute World Snacks books from Canada’s Ten Speed Press.
The seven books in the series range from A First Book of Sushi and Indian Chaat and Sweets to Italian, Mexican and traditional Jewish cuisine.
Author Amy Wilson Sanger has used mixed media and paper-cut collages to create lively illustrations for each book. Combined with the beautiful illustrations are jolly rhymes to describe the food. You would be right in thinking that writing a little ditty about nori rolls for one-year-olds would be tricky, however Sanger clearly has world snacks down pat. As a taste test, consider this little bite from ‘Let’s Nosh’ – "….a scoop of noodle kugel in my fancy-schmancy bowl next to fruit-filled hamentaschen and some nutty rugelach rolls."
These books really are a treat and I must confess that I bought a set with the intention of giving them as a gift and then kept them for my own kids (or actually myself).
The books are available directly from Ten Speed Press at US$6.95 each. Also in the Ten Speed Press range is the familiar ‘Urban Babies Wear Black’ and other titles in that series.
