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Yum! ¡MmMm! ¡Qué Rico! Americas’ Sproutings is a fantastic collection of haiku by Pat Mora accompanied by illustrations from Rafael López.

Have you ever thought about where some of your favorite foods come from?  This Thanksgiving as you sit down to pumpkin or pecan pie, mashed potatoes, corn, or cranberry sauce, think about if you know where these foods originated.  Now, Yum! ¡MmMm! ¡Qué Rico! Americas’ Sprouting isn’t about the Pilgrims and Native Americans and how did we come to eat these foods at the Thanksgiving dinner table but rather about the foods found native to the Americas before they were divided into countries.

Chocolate.

Fudge, cake, pie, cookies.
Brown magic melts on your tongue.
Happy, your eyes dance.

Pecan

We crack hard, brown shells,
family munching, story time,
crunchy taste of fall.

Pineapple
A stiff, spiky hat
on thick prickly skin, inside
hid syrupy rings.

Pumpkin

Under round luna,
scattered tumblings down the rows,
autumn’s orange face.

Each haiku is accompanied by a short paragraph that explains where the particular food comes from, as well as interesting facts about it.  LIke tomatoes probably originated in Peru or Mexico and though it’s technically a fruit is eaten as a vegetable. Most of us know that but do you know why it’s considered a vegetable?  In 1893, the United State Supreme Court ruled that tomatoes should be subject to the government’s tax on imported vegetables.  I bet you didn’t know that did you?!  (And in all honesty, I did know that, but I find it so interesting it was a Supreme Court ruling.)  Potatoes are native to Andean mountains of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador in South America and the Aymara Indians of Bolivia developed more than two hundred varieties of potatoes alone.  And in 1955 potatoes became the first vegetable grown in outer space.

The illustrations by Rafael López are fantastic and is heavily influenced by the work of Mexican muralists and I must admit that they make me really hungry.  Dancing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?  Come on?  You’ve got to love that.

A great book for a closer look into the food that are native to the America’s as well as a great introduction for children to haiku – seventeen-syllable poems of Japanese origin.

Do you write haiku (looking at you Amy!).  I’d love to have you share your favorite Thanksgiving food in haiku, if you are up for it.

Links of interest:  Pat Mora website, Rafael López website, Maw Books review of Gracias Thanks also by Pat Mora.
Genre: Fiction picture book. Approx ages 4-8.
Publisher: Lee & Low Books. October 31, 2007
Hardcover/Paperback # of pages. ISBN 1584302712
Yum! ¡MmMm! ¡Qué Rico! Americas’ Sproutings is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

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