Perfect Picture Book Friday/Peeny Butter Fudge

Yep. I scoured the perfect picture book lists and not only found themes for my special selection but found it hasn’t been reviewed before. *Yay* So starts my series on Books By First Authors For Cheerios and Spoonfuls of Stories and General Mills. Cheerios has led a contest for the past several years for unpublished authors.  All the books I am going to feature for the next two months have been translated into Spanish.and are found in Cheerios boxes  In fact after I learned there were picture books in Cheerios boxes, I bought eight boxes just for the books. I was lucky in that it was over Easter and I could give all the boxes of cereal to my niece for her teen boys to eat. lol. And of course I kept the books.

 

Title: Peeny Butter Fudge

Written by: Toni Morrison and her son Slade Morrison

Illustrated by: Joe Cepeda

Appropriate for: Ages four to eleven, fiction from Simon and Schuster, 2009

Resources: http://books.google.com/books?id=kNYonbKlwdoC&pg=PA131&lpg=PA131&dq=Peeny+Butter+Fudge+teacher+guides&source=bl&ots=BktxurcUDf&sig=6hzJ7zyB0z8C56z7LWJs4XODjl4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=A9GhT6aGIq7M6QG76OX0CA&sqi=2&ved=0CHcQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=Peeny%20Butter%20Fudge%20teacher%20guides&f=false for discussion guides on who can’t eat peanut butter to what does your grandmother do when Mommy’s not home. There’s this one http://books.simonandschuster.ca/Peeny-Butter-Fudge/Slade-Morrison/9781416983323 and even this one for more teacher guides are here: http://authors.simonandschuster.net/Slade-Morrison/18922951

Themes: family, grandparents, grandmother, grandchildren, parenting, food, recipe, common childhood experiences, Love, working together, Team work, self-esteem, cooking, relationships, Play and playtime,

First three sentences: Snuggle, Snuggle. Time for rest. Nana joins us in her nest. Nap time, Nap time not so long when Nana sings a sleepy song.

Brief Summary: This is an amusing and humorous story of what it’s like to have grandmother around when the parents are away. This rhyming story tells how one grandmother changes the instructions mother left for her own about what she thinks the children should do.

Why I love it: Because I’m a grandmother and this is all about being one. I even got validation on some of the things I do when my grandson visits. This is from a grandchild’s point of view showing the reader how special time with “Nana” is. Mother leaves instructions on the frig but Nana does her own thing. She reads stories, plays interactive games like doctor, she sack races around the town, she makes a yummy lunch and best of all she passes along a recipe for Peeny Butter Fudge to her grandchildren that when Mommy comes home remembers making with “Nana” when she was small. This is a  rhyming story and of course is by African American authors. I love the humorous twist at the end which I’m not telling. And best of all there is a recipe at the end of the book for Peeny Butter Fudge that one can make with their own children. Or if you’re a grandma like me, with your grandchildren.

Do you think you will want to read this book? Why? Weigh in at the comments.

For more books with resources please visit Perfect Picture Books at Susanna Leonard Hill’s blog. And if you’d like to be whisked away through cyber space to the resource page and the list of more marvelous recommended perfect picture books just click on the perfect picture book badge on the right.

I will be featuring an author of the Spoonful of Stories Contest on my blog the third Tuesday in May so stay tuned.

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