LETTUCE GET IN TROUBLE

Lettuce Get in Trouble is a brand new picture book that gives kids a glimpse into the life of a small lady who had a big love for design, practicality, and problem solving. 

Meet Sara Little Turnbull, "a troublemaker of the best sort", whose favorite question was: "WHY?" 

Sara Little was a small dynamo (under five feet tall!) and is a wonderful example for young designers and thinkers. When I started exploring her bio I was immediately reminded of the THE INCREDIBLES diminutive costume designer Edna "E" Mode and her inspiration, Hollywood designer Edith Head.

The Center for Design Books is launching a children's book series called Sara Little Trouble Maker, which is based on Sara and her design work. This first book, Lettuce Get in Trouble, is available May 17, 2022. Author Linda Kuo and illustrator Mariana Rio have done a fabulous job in making Sara come to life in lively text and fun retro illustrations for children... 

Young readers will learn how Sara's wise mother teaches her to look at beauty in the shapes and colors of food as they cook in their modest Brooklyn kitchen. Later, when Sara is grown up and working in New York, we see that her gift for observation helps her answer lots of questions at the start of her career in product development.  

One of the most pressing problems she tackles is from the Ministry of Food asking for help because "children seem to have stopped eating vegetables."  Her response is, "Have you talked to the children?"

This is where the story gets fun! Sara brings children from all over the world to her Little Lab in New York City to explore not only the importance of vegetables, but the ingenuity of design in the colors and shapes of food.  She discovers that many of the children believe that vegetables only come from cans.

Sara teaches them about design ("To design is to look for connections" and "Good design solves problems and also makes the world more beautiful and fun") and why vegetables are important. Together they design a Grand Event. She encourages them to make fun and tasty creations under big tents in a park.

Inside one tent are Lotus leaf plates, lettuce cups, wild grass straws... a zero-waste lunch.

Lin rolls out wraps with the children and shows off her almond butter and strawberry jelly burrito.

One child sprinkles mint leaves on tacos filled with bright orange carrots and red peppers.

I think any child who reads this book will be inspired about design and try some imaginative food combinations of their own after seeing all the fun and colorful geometric illustrations! I certainly was!

The first person to leave a comment below is welcome to my beautiful review copy of Lettuce Get in Trouble. After you leave a comment, please email me at [spam]wendyb1963@[spam]sbcglobal.net to send me your mailing address.

You can read more about the real Sara Little Turnbull at https://www.saralittleturnbull.com/about and here in the Fortune article: https://fortune.com/2022/03/08/women-history-never-heard-of-design-careers-pioneers-work-success-sara-little-paula-rees/

Lunch With "Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree"

My grandson is the lucky recipient of "story lunches", which my creative daughter wholeheartedly enjoys putting together for him.  

She cuts the food into shapes, creates a scenario on his plate, and proceeds to tell him a story about the lunch.  Sometimes they're made up on the spot; other days her stories are inspired from one of his favorite picture books.



Yesterday she sent me pictures that I just had to share with you of their "Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree" story lunch.

Are you familiar with this cute Christmas picture book by Robert Barry (first published in 1963)?

"Mr. Willowby's Christmas tree

Came by special delivery.

Full and fresh and glistening green-

The biggest tree he'd ever seen." 

I can guarantee that your child will love the story, told in rhyme, about all the places rich Mr. Willowby's too-tall-treetop (chopped off by his butler) is shared around the neighborhood -- unbeknownst to him!  

The very tip top ends up in a mouse family's hole as their tiny tree...

My grandson enjoyed a fun lunch of tortilla-gouda-apple mice and a snap pea Christmas tree!

"Then at the top, if you please,

They put a star made out of cheese!"

We had a good laugh, because our tree is actually a bit tall for my living room ceiling, so I don't have a tree topper yet.  "Should I get a cheese star?" I asked my grandson.  He just laughed and said, "Nooo, Grandma!"

For more Christmas stories featuring mice, go to my past blog post "Not A Creature Was Stirring...", here.

My December giveaway ends on December 15, 2015.  Go to my last post here to enter for a chance to win one of the two books I'm offering.  Winner announced on December 16, Jane Austen's birthday!

Books about TEA FOR TWO-Year Olds!

The box: I almost missed it!

But there it was - just at eye-level - haphazardly resting on a shelf in our garage.

A somewhat faded pink-striped box that encased my daughter's long forgotten Circus Tea Set.

Perfect.

A rainy weekend.

My two-year-old grandson loves "tea" parties. (I do too - doesn't everyone?!)

And I love books about tea parties. (He does too!)

I hope I've included some of your favorite tea party stories, as I've gathered ours for this post. (click the titles for links to my past reviews)...

Miss Spider's Tea Party

by David Kirk

(Because, really, what's a tea party without a spider?!)

Tea Rex

by Molly Idle

(Because boys and girls love dinosaurs - and dinosaurs apparently love tea!)

Winnie-the-Pooh's Teatime Cookbook

inspired by A.A. Milne

illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard

(You'll find a recipe for Honeycake, of course!)

Baby Lit Alice in Wonderland

A colors primer by Jennifer Adams

(A fun introduction to all things Alice from "Little Master Carroll")

What to serve your little munchkin?  Click here for Book Themed Food Ideas.  And go here for my past posts on Storybook Party Ideas.

The Litany of Laundry (and other ordinary things)

 Etsy

Housework or "home-making" can seem tedious: the daily ritual of chores that once completed, only needs to be done again and again.  For parents, "making a home" is the never-ending work of meeting the needs of others.

Laundry.
Cooking.
Dishes.
Making beds.
Dusting.
Cleaning bathrooms.

"When considered in terms of their enormous life-giving importance, the feeding and clothing of a family and maintaining of a household can be undertaken in the contemplative spirit. They become, like prayer and worship, acts of love that transform us and, in turn, the larger world around us."

-Kathleen Norris, The Quotidian Mysteries

Just as the sun comes up every morning and sets every evening, housework, too, is repetitious and has to be done over and over, but it certainly does not need to necessarily equate monotonous or futile drudgery.

Mother and Daughter Wash Day, 1870 [source]

No matter how busy our schedules are, many of these daily tasks, "quotidian mysteries", can be enjoyable and fulfilling.  Haven't we all experienced the satisfying feeling of walking into an orderly room, with the bed made and clothes put away? And who doesn't look forward to the aroma of freshly baked bread? Or the crisp feel of clean sheets, just brought in from the clothesline (okay, maybe towels, warm and soft - straight from the dryer - are more your style)?

Housekeeping may seem mundane, but it's not simple!  Industrialization did not eliminate or reduce "women's work", it vastly increased the productivity of women working at home. Doing the important things (providing healthy meals and a clean - not immaculate - home, reading aloud to your children), and not being constantly led to the point of distraction by the urgent things (telephone calls, emails, unplanned interruptions, etc.) can be challenging.  Sometimes the important and urgent intersect.  We need to take time management seriously and set priorities for the different seasons of our family life.

Another challenge with keeping house can be one's expectations.  Pinterest is fun and helpful (I even have a practical "Quotidian: Daily Care of Home and Family" Board), but this current fad can also be a source of distraction and unrealistic expectations - which can lead to procrastination.  Margaret Kim Peterson, in her book Keeping House, notes:

"There has surely always been a gap between the way people keep their houses and the way they would like ideally to keep them.  But many of us, I suspect, are demoralized by the task of keeping house in part because we know that our houses, no matter how well kept, will never look like the palaces in the dream house publications.  And so we give up, preferring unattainable ideals to less than perfect realities."

Realistic?  No - Architectural Digest Home Library [source].

Her answer to avoiding this temptation?  Humility and gratitude for what we have, and willingness to create in our homes and habits "enough order and tidiness to promote convenience and peace and hospitality."

What's got me thinking about all this?  My soon-to-be-born grandchild and a new, old-fashioned restaurant...

I've enjoyed watching my daughter, Mary, wash and meticulously fold all the newborn baby boy clothes her sister-in-law recently passed down her.  I could hardly wait to present Mary with my baby-smell-in-a-box-secret:  Ivory Snow.  She's been gleefully doing laundry ever since, busily nesting while she awaits the arrival of her little one.

Speaking of waiting, after eight weeks of being on bed rest to avoid pre-term labor, my daughter is up and around now (and due in two weeks)!  Yesterday we went out (we made our beds first, of course) for a visit to her hospital and an enjoyable late morning breakfast at a new restaurant/bakery I've been excited to take her to: Le Pain Quotidien (literally "Daily Bread").

Le Pain Quotidien, Newport Beach

Amazing, right?  We had a frittata and fruit, too.

Mommy Mary and Baby Peter are doing great!

Kids can learn a lot about the joys of hospitality and home-making from books: Laura and Mary were constantly helping Ma and Pa with chores and cooking in the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. And I love this picnic scene from The Wind in the Willows --

“... he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger's origin and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes.” ― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Books about Housekeeping and Laundry:
The Quotidian Mysteries, by Kathleen Norris (for Moms)

The Tale of Miss Tiggy-Winkle, by Beatrix Potter (for kids)

We Help Mommy, illustrated by Eloise Wilkin (Little Golden Book)

Knuffle Bunny, by Mo Willems (lost bunny at a laundromat!)


Books about Baking Bread:
Sun Bread, by Elisa Kleven. Winter's gray chill has set in and everyone misses the sun-especially the baker. So she decides to bring some warmth to the town by making sun bread. And as the bread bakes, rising hot and delicious, everyone comes out to share in its goodness. Everyone, including the sun itself. With a lilting, rhyming text, colorful illustrations, and a recipe for baking your own sun bread
 
The Woman and the Wheat, by Jane Meyer.  An excellent choice for teaching children about the mystery of the bread that becomes food from heaven, in Holy Communion.  And Jane has an excellent blog about baking - see my past post about her books and website/blog, here.


You might also enjoy my past post about cooking/food/books:  The Secret Ingredient: Learning (& Fun!)

THE SECRET INGREDIENT: LEARNING (& FUN!)

Most children enjoy helping their parents with cooking. Especially when kids are just starting to read, cooking is not only a good family bonding experience, but a great learning activity too. Cooking involves math, science, thinking skills and...reading!

Watch for this new children's picture book biography
    about Julia Child,  coming out in May 22,  2012!

So grab an apron and a cookbook! You can point out words in the recipe, while you explain to your child how the words correlate to what you're doing as you measure and bake. Grocery shopping is also a great way to help kids get involved in reading - they can help you read labels as you search for the recipe ingredients!

Playing with your food...
I recently blogged about food-themed books - you can find "My Top Ten Picture Books About Food" post here.  What about book-themed food? Here are some fun ideas:

Eric Carle's Hungry Caterpillar lunches...

from My Food Looks Funny

from Nurture Store

A pretty Princess and the Pea Cake...

from Family Fun

Pigeon Cake...

From an Edible Books Festival

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs...

from Parents Magazine (photo Tara Donne)

Here's a short trailer for the brand new book titled Funny Food, by Bill and Claire Wurtzell.  It's got 365 "fun, healthy, silly, creative breakfasts" for you to make with or for your kids.  You won't believe some of the creations!



 Another unique book is Once Upon a Recipe, by Karen Greene...More than fifty delicious, healthy recipes with cooking tips and  allusions to works of children's literature. For instance: Babar's Carob French Toast, Shakespeare's Breakfast Sandwiches, Rumpelstiltskin's Pillow, and Bambi's Salad Bowl.

As Julia would say: "Bon Appetit!"