Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth
Illustrator: Ashley Wolff
Picture Book
For ages 5 to 8
Tricycle Press, 2010 ISBN: 978-1582463162
You may not know this, but there are many ways to recycle. Of course you can take bottles, cans, newspapers, and boxes to the recycling center, but you can also recycle other things – you can compost items from your home and turn them into good rich soil that you can use in your garden.
So what is composting anyway? Composting is when you take biodegradable items and put them in a bin of some sort. Over time what you put into this bin will break down and turn into soil that you can give back to Mother Earth.
This book gives you a “recipe” for “environmental chefs” who want to know how to make compost. The ingredients are easy to find and include “Apple cores/Bananas, bruised/Coffee grounds with filters, used.” In fact, all your ingredients for your compost stew are things that you would normally put into a trash can. Add “Kitchen scraps/Laundry lint from dryer traps” to your compost mix, then water it, mix it, and let it sit, and very soon you will have a “dark and crumbly, rich and sweet” gift for Mother Earth.
This wonderful rhyming picture book will show children how easy, and how fun, composting can be. Children will come to see that composting is yet another way that we can do our part for the environment. With delightful multimedia pictures on ever page (created in part by using recycled and found materials) and a catchy text, this is a perfect book to share with children who are eager to “be green.”
