mud pies and other recipes - a cookbook for dolls
~ by marjorie winslow, illus. by erik blegvad

Dolls have distinct, discriminating tastes, and only the most exacting cuisine will do. Their demands on the imagination and originality are exhausting for the adult, but of course come naturally to the child. However, children are extremely busy people, and have no time or patience for messing about when dolls are to be fed properly. Luckily, these inspired yet practical recipes are sure to delight and satisfy the most picky doll, lickety-split. Lovely line drawings and menu suggestions make planning ahead a good bedtime project as well.

Anastasia is a thoughtful, observant, assertive, and dramatic child in a wonderfully non-cookie-cutter family. The Krupniks are startlingly real and intelligent, and get into real fights, have real discussions, make difficult decisions, and engage in real everyday silliness. Running through Anastasia's stories are the emotional situations that run through any 10-year-old's life - curiosity, confusion, anger, resentment, excitement, rejection and acceptance...and Lowry writes through them without any hint of moralizing, patronizing, or cutesiness. Lowry respects the end-of-the-world seriousness of a young life, but lets Anastasia discover and react with a sense of humor -- and the Krupniks have a very well-developed sense of humor. My mother and I still quote and act out passages from the Anastasia books.

These are the first two Anastasia books from two-time Newberry Medal winner Lois Lowry. Anastasia's story continues in many other books, so you can read about her for a very long time. Believe me, you'll have to read all of them once you start.
Recommended for read-aloud ages 7-10, read-alone ages 9-10. They're each about 115 pages.
  
read excerpts from Anastasia Krupnik:  page 1 of 2   page 2 of 2
read excerpts from Anastasia Again:  page 1 of 2   page 2 of 2

**The pictured covers are the gorgeous hardcover editions. The paperbacks have been reissued with new, cheesy covers. Never judge a book by its cover!
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alphabet city and city by numbers ~ by stephen t. johnson

Some of the best art books are not the $75 tomes that hulk on the coffee table of your dreams, but are, in fact, in disguise as children's books sold at a slim price. Stephen T. Johnson's near-photo-realist paintings unearth numbers and letters in urban landscapes with startling complexity and beauty. Children will love them for the plain fact of the arresting images, for their photographic quality, and for the thrill of discovery of the hidden images. It took me awhile to see a few of them, so the books are great for older children as well. Johnson's images encourage children (and adults) to examine light and shadow, scale, perspective, design, form, and most of all, to pay attention to the myriad subtle beauties contained in seemingly mundane places.

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betty crocker's cookbook for boys and girls, 1957

You don't know you're craving Eggs-in-a-Frame, Good Kid Cookies, or tuna burgers with "diced process yellow cheese" until you've opened this cookbook. Okay, so maybe you're not really craving any of those things. But this is one cookbook you've got to have. For adults, it's a kitsch and design delight, an exact reproduction of the illustrated cookbook from 1957. And I must admit, I did make meatloaf for the very first time the night after I read it, with a few adaptations.

Some of the more peculiar recipes include a terribly suggestive Candle Salad (1/2 a banana set upright in the center of a canned pineapple slice, with a maraschino cherry fastened to the top) and some really odd representational fruit constructions to grace the top of your child's cereal dish, unfortunately including Fatso (half a peach with raisin eyes and cherry nose) and Old Black Joe (a prune with a banana and cherry hat). Yikes. You might want to have a little dialogue about that page. Or take it out.

Children will pore over the photographs and lust for pancakes with their initials, Ice Cream Cone Cakes, and the Igloo cake. Luckily for busy parents, almost all of the recipes begin with a Betty Crocker cake mix, Bisquick, or Jello. Though the small motor skills required to make your Easter Hat Cake look just like Betty's might be frustrating for your young child, most of the recipes are plain old easy fun. While pigs-in-a-blanket may not be your idea of a healthy after-school snack, you must admit they are fun to make, fun to look at, and quite tasty. And you may find yourself whipping up a batch of Cheese Dreams (english muffins with bacon, tomato, and cheese, broiled to a melty mess) in the middle of the night to quench your housewife or househusband cravings.

{191 pages} {hardcover with inner spiral binding} {8 x 6.25 inches} {Betty Crocker}