Food Fest: If All the World Were Food by Carl Warner

IF ALL THE WORLD WERE ORANGE,
WE WOULD LIVE IN PUMPKIN HOUSES
WHERE CARROTS, BEANS, AND TANGERINES
FORM TREES AND ROCKS AROUND US.

Only a fantastical, fanatical foodie could conjure up a world composed solely of foodstuffs, in colors for every season and time of year. A world of green? Yes, with trees of curly kale and broccoli, and bridges of carved cucumber.

A world of brown? Well, lots of chocolate for starters!

In a world of silver the sea would be shiny-scaled fish. A world of pink would be a world built of bubble gum, hot pink gummy worms, and jelly beans, and a world of white would be filled with ice cream castles with waffle cone turrets.

With illustrations both realistic and surrealistic, there’s something for every child’s taste in Carl Warner’s imaginative A World of Food: Discover Magical Lands Made of Things You Can Eat! (Abrams, 2012). As in his 2010 Carl Warner's Food Landscapes Warner’s fanciful but meticulous illustrations in a super-saturated palette make for lots of eye-candy appeal, and in this latest, there is a  lot of detail on each color’s double-page spread to make this book an ebullient browse. For classroom food units or just food-fun reading, pair this one with Caldecott artist David Wiesner’s June 29, 1999 or Judi Barrett’s all-time food-fest favorite, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.  Publishers Weekly puts in a plug: "A delightful supplement that should be browsed at leisure."