How Did That Get in My Lunchbox? The Story of Food

PreS-Gr 2—Chris Butterworth's picture book (Candlewick, 2011) breaks down a typical lunch that children take to school into several ingredients, and shows where each one came from, how it got to the lunchbox, and how many people worked to put it there. With peppy music and expressive narration, each food item—bread, cheese, the chocolate chip in a cookie, apple juice, carrots, and tomatoes—are followed from the farm to the table, with each step simply explained and illustrated. The video does lose some of the timeline layout of the book where Lucia Gaggiotti's bright and cheerful artwork follows each process in linear fashion, with arrows connecting the steps. The video zooms in on each step in turn, but the overall process and its flow are not shown. An introduction to the federal government's new MyPlate Dietary Guidelines and Food Facts follows the story to help children make healthy food and exercise choices. There's also a conversation with the author, accompanied by images from the book. A fun way to help children appreciate the work that goes into producing food and understand how healthy food contributes to their growth.—MaryAnn Karre, Horace Mann and Thomas Jefferson Elementary Schools, Binghamton, NY