Book Drops: Nonfiction Monday

My first Nonfiction Monday post of the year. To check out more selections, visit the Picture Book of the Day blog. I joined this group at the end of the year and now I'm hooked. I have actually found really great stuff for the middle school and the public library that I work at. Also, I'm finding more blogs to read and more interesting folks (librarians and others) to interact with. Pretty neat how this circle keeps on growing.

Today, I am featuring 2 books:

1. Liana Romulo's My First Book of Tagalog Words published in 2006 by Tuttle Publishing. I found this while helping one of my patron's who was looking for the Pokemon Handbook. It is illusrated by Jaime Laurel. My First Book of Tagalog Words is cute and fun introduction to Tagalog. The words Romulo features are some that are regularly spoken in most Filipino households. The illustrations are bright and colorful and convey the short verses that Romulo used to describe each word. There were a couple of letters, like X and Z, that do nore really have Tagalog words so she was kind of stretching it there but I think, little kids would love still love this book.
2. Ken Robbins' Food For Thought: the stories behind the things we eat published 2009 from Roaring Brook Press. If you have read this blog and my other one, you know, I really like to read a lot about food. So, in keeping with my little obsession, I decided to read this selection for Nonfiction Mondays as well. Robbins' explores the history, myths, jokes and other facts that are associated with some of our favorite foods - apples, oranges, potatoes, tomatoes, grapes, bananas, mushrooms, corn, and pomegranates. It is almost like a kid's version of Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire. Robbins' presents the facts and stories in a lighthearted and fun approach, so as not to turn children away from wanted to learn more about where their food comes from. For example, he writes about the game "hot potatoe" and then talks about the potatoe famine and next tempers it with the different names the potatoe is known by. Robbins does try to include a lot of information and at times it jumps from one face to the next fact but overall, it is a great read about those different I listed earlier. Hopefully, it will make children more interested in the food they are eating.