Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Module #7 Nonfiction


Title: What the World Eats

Citation:
D’Aluisio, F. & Menzel, P. (2008). What the world eats. Berkeley, CA: Tricycle Press

Summary:
This book is an adaptation of a 2005 book by the same authors entitled Hungry planet: What the world eats. This adaptation is geared toward middle school and older students and includes more pictures of kids and facts about foods that kids might find interesting.  D’Aluisio and Menzel traveled to 21 countries around the world to photograph and document what 25 families eat in a typical week. The authors  goal was to explore the implications of a global market place on the modern diet and health of the world inhabitants.  

Review(s):
Grades 4-8. The authors' Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, published for adults, won the James Beard Foundation Award in 2005 for Book of the Year. In this new youth edition, the creators have reworked the text, added new material, and honed the book’s focus to more specifically reflect the experiences of young people. The basic concept, however, remains the same: an illustrated survey of what people across the globe eat in a single week. In preparation for this project, Menzel and D’Aluisio shared meals with 25 families in 21 countries around the globe. Each chapter serves as an intimate photo-essay of a different family and their week’s worth of groceries, listed (with prices in both local and U.S. currency) and pictured in a photograph of food and family members that opens each section. Stunning color photographs of mealtimes and daily activities illustrate the warm, informative, anecdotal narratives about each family. New to this volume are the many pages of statistics, displayed in eye-catching graphics that compare various countries’ rates of obesity, access to safe water, daily caloric intake, and other food-related issues. Like the adult edition, this is a fascinating, sobering, and instructive look at daily life around the world, and it will draw readers of a wide age range to its beautifully composed pages.

Review Source:
Engberg, G. (July 2008). What the world eats (Book Review).  Booklist, 104(21), 65.

Impressions:
This is a fascinating book. The pictures tell the story of food around the world all by themselves and can be enjoyed without reading a thing. Pairing the images with text that explains how the food is gathered and prepared really brings home how easy food is to come by in most developed countries. The author’s point that we are what we eat is very clear in the obesity rates of countries with too many processed and fast foods too readily available.

Suggested Use(s):
1.     Use this book to teach student show to read/interpret charts and graphs.
2.     Use this book in Geography to locate the countries featured and discuss climate in each country
3.     Use this book in Health class to discuss nutrition and healthy diets.
4.     Use this book to compare familial expectations of kids around the world in daily life.
5.     Divide the class into pairs of students and assign each pair a country. Have them learn more about that country, prepare a food commonly eaten and present their research to the class.

Additional Information:
Awards:            ALA 2009 Best Books for Young Adults award winner
            2009 Notable Books for a Global Society award winner
            James beard Foundation Best Book of the Year 2006 (for The Hungry Planet: What the World Eats)
Photographer: Faith D’Aluisio

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