Mora, Pat. YUM! MMMM! QUE RICO! AMERICAS’ SPROUTINGS. Ill. Rafael Lopez. 2007. New York, NY. Lee & Low Books. ISBN 978-1-58430-271-1.

 BIBLIOGRPAHY 

Mora, Pat. YUM! MMMM! QUE RICO! AMERICAS’ SPROUTINGS. Ill. Rafael Lopez.  

2007. New York, NY. Lee & Low Books. ISBN 978-1-58430-271-1. 

 

PLOT SUMMARY 

This collection of Haiku’s celebrates foods that are native to North and South America. Each double-page spread contains a haiku accompanied by culturally rich illustrations and a side note with plentiful details and information on the food being portrayed.  

CRITICAL ANALYSIS (INCLUDING CULTURAL MARKERS) 

Pat Morales takes the readers on a journey through tasty foods native to North and South America through the collection of Haiku’s filled with child-friendly words and images appealing to the eye. The haiku’s are authentic to the food being described as it is accompanied by culturally rich illustrations portraying characters, animals, homes, and settings that reflect the environment for the story.  

In each haiku we can appreciate the culture represented for the different geographical area. For example, in Pecan “We crack hard, brown shells, family munching, story time, crunchy taste of fall,” we see beautiful warm fall colors in the landscape and the family enjoying pecans together. We see the theme of family as the parents with their children and their grandmother are pictured. The grandmother is illustrated as all familiar type grandmother with a rounded body structure. The Spanish language is present throughout including a translation at the beginning of the book. Words such as “luna, dulces, tortillas” are embedded within the haikus.  

The side notes include information of the native countries to the foods including interesting information, the Spanish words, varieties of the food and more. This book does a great job of celebrating diversity as different parts of the Americas are represented. The nonfiction poetry book is specific to cooking and food. The format is appealing; however, the side note for each food is a small part of the page with small font. The illustrations accurately portray the haiku with bright colors and iteral portrayals of the food described. 

REVIEW EXCERPTS 

ALA Notable Children’s Books, 2008 

Book Links, 01/01/14 

Book Links starred, 01/01/08 

Booklist, 04/15/14 

Booklist starred, 12/01/17 

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, 12/01/07 

Horn Book Magazine, 04/01/08 

Library Media Connection, 02/01/08 

School Library Journal, 09/01/07 

Booklist starred (December 1, 2007 (Vol. 104, No.7): “The print of the text in the sidebars is too small, but otherwise this will provide lots and lots of lip-smacking fun that teachers can use to supplement social studies and language arts units; they can also share one poem at a time, between other subjects.” 

Horn Book Guide (Spring 2008): “Fourteen haiku celebrate blueberries, chiles, chocolate, corn, pineapples, and other foods from North and South America.” 

Kirkus Reviews (September 15, 2007): “Each spread includes an informative paragraph explaining the probable origin, history and some trivia for the plant described in the poem.” 

CONNECTIONS 

A great language arts extension for students is to write their own haiku about a food they enjoy eating.  

Readers can accompany their haiku with an illustration to complement their creative words.  

Displaying other books by Pat Mora will give students the opportunity to see more books about her work and possibly check out books by this author.  

Muth, Jon J. HI, KOO! ISBN 978-0-545-77764-3 

Aylesworth, Jim. THIS BOOK IS CALLED THE BURGER AND THE HOT DOG. ISBN 978-0-689-83897-2 

Mora, Pat. BOOK FIESTA! CELEBRATE CHILDREN’S DAY/BOOK DAY=CELEBRAMOS EL DIA DE LOS NINOS. ISBN 978-1-54900-000-3