Pretend Soup and Other Real Recipes : A Cookbook for Preschoolers & Up

This is the first of three delightful cookbooks that offer kids a chance to improve their reading skills along with their kitchen skills.

For each of the 19 recipes here, kids will find simple line drawings illustrating each step in the recipe, accompanied by a few short words of text. (The recipes are also presented in format more familiar to adults, in case they have trouble following along). Kids learn how to cook by learning how to do things in order. They also get a chance to work on their reading skills as they see words such as "stir" and "eat" in context.

Co-author Mollie Katzen is, most famously, the author of The Moosewood Cookbook, and not surprisingly all the recipes here are vegetarian. Since most 4-year-olds aren't ready to undertake roasting a chicken, this doesn't present a problem even for omnivorous parents.

Kids can make (and will therefore more likely eat) dishes such as zucchini moons, carrot pennies, oatmeal surprise, and even pizza. Katzen has also written two other children's cookbooks, which form a set with Pretend Soup. They are Salad People (also for preschoolers and up) and Honest Pretzels, which is more suitable for kids with better reading and kitchen skills, say from age 8 and up.

Paperback. Color illustrations throughout.