Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Read, Read, Read, said the Baby: Rosa's big pizza experiment by Jessica Spanyol

This is really a cross between a picture book and a board book. It's 8"x8", larger than the typical board book, and the pages are stiffened cardstock, rather than thick cardboard.

Rosa, a pudgy preschooler with brown skin, curly dark hair, and yellow glasses, gets together with her friends to make pizza. Her friends include two more brown-skinned children, both with straight, dark hair and hearing aides, and a white child with curly brown hair and a scarf tied over her head. Their names are Kezia, Jamil, and Sadiq.

The children chat together as they wash their hands, measure out ingredients, and roll out pizza dough. They also contribute some interesting facts; Jamil tells them that "Yeast uses the flour to create bubbles...that's what makes the dough rise." Kezia knows to put the dough somewhere warm to rise, and they share their dough with Jamil when his doesn't rise well.

Having created their pizzas, they sit down to enjoy them and celebrate the fun of pizza-making, "Look how different our pizzas are...but they all taste delicious." says Rosa.

This is a great example of a simple science experiment that toddlers and preschoolers can participate in. It even includes hints for talking points at a child's level. I love this so much more than those "Baby Loves Science" board books that are really for adults and not developmentally appropriate at all. I love the added range of diversity as well.

The drawback for these is that they're difficult to purchase in the US. My vendor still lists them as "not yet published" although they came out in May and this one, which I ordered from Amazon personally, took several months to arrive. After some investigation, it looks like I got the UK version and it will be "officially" released in the US in October 2020.

Verdict: Whether you put these in your board book, picture book, or STEAM sections, these are must-haves for any library or preschool and great choices for at-home learning for little ones as well.

ISBN: 9781786283610; This edition published May 2020 by Child's Play; Personally purchased on Amazon; Donated to the library

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