Welcome to Kids in the Kitchen. This blog series highlights great cookbooks for kids.

Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook for Young Readers and Eaters by Jane Yolen and Heidi Stemple
Library Catalog
Fairy Tale Feasts is more than collection of stories and recipes. In it, Caldecott-winning author Jane Yolen and her daughter, Heidi Stemple, imagine their readers as co-conspirators. About the creation of the stories and the history of the foods they share fun facts and anecdotes designed to encourage future cooks and storytellers to make up their own versions of the classics. From the earliest days of stories, when hunters told of their exploits around the campfire while gnawing on a leg of beast, to the era of kings in castles listening to the storyteller at the royal dinner feast, to the time of TV dinners when whole families sit for dinner in front of a screen to watch a movie, stories and eating have been close companions. So it is not unusual that folk stories are often about food. Jack's milk cow traded for beans, Snow White given a poisoned apple, a pancake running away from those who would eat it, Hansel and Gretel lured by the gingerbread house and its candy windows and doors. But there is something more- stories and recipes are both changeable. A storyteller never tells the same story twice, because every audience needs a slightly different story, depending upon the season or the time of day, the restlessness of the youngest listener, or how appropriate a tale is to what has just happened in the storyteller's world. And every cook knows that a recipe changes according to the time of day, the weather, the altitude, the number of grains in the level teaspoonful, the ingredients found (or not found) in the cupboard or refrigerator, even the cook's own feelings about the look of the batter. – Publisher Marketing

Kid in the Kitchen: 100 Recipes and Tips for Young Home Cooks: A Cookbook by Melissa Clark and Daniel Gercke
Library Catalog
Chef Clark, author of the best-selling Dinner: Changing the Game and food writer for the New York Times, discovered her love of creating in the kitchen when she was eight-years-old, with a sweet attempt at a rainbow cake. In this latest book, she recalls the joy of that experience and offers encouragement to teenagers, especially, who want to get started in the kitchen. Like her previous books, Clark is engaging and heartening.Here, she starts with the basics, including simple rules (e.g., “wash your hands” and “taste as you cook”), along with techniques for chopping and mincing garlic, suggestions for tools to keep handy, and even tips on how to showcase your efforts on social media. Included are recipes for simple dinners and others for parties; each dish includes a section of tips and tweaks. Recipes themselves go beyond the basics and can be more adventurous with inclusions of popovers, pizzas, and grain bowls. VERDICT Clark has created a welcoming beginner's resource that will allow budding home cooks to find joy in the kitchen. – Library Journal

Marvelously Revolting Recipes by Roald Dahl
Library Catalog
This delightfully gruesome collection of recipes, inspired by the writing of Roald Dahl and featuring art from a variety of well-known children's illustrators, includes 26 new dishes and a dozen from previous editions of the “Revolting Recipes” books. With everything from Whoopsey Splunkers to Scarlet Scorchdroppers, these treats will elicit a spark of recognition from Dahl fans as they peruse the book. Illustrations are a pastiche of art and photography and splash joyfully across the pages, making this a real feast for the eyes. On the topic of feasting: while some of the recipes are straightforward and appealing, others are more befitting of the title (anyone care for prawns in rice paper, billed as “Earwigs cooked in slime”?). Some of the ingredients are less common, and at least a few of the recipes lean more toward fantasy than something that a young cook could successfully pull off; but there is so much fun to be had here that this feels like a small price to pay. VERDICT A book that lives up to its title, recommended for school and public libraries with a Dahl fanbase. – School Library Journal

Super Foods for Super Kids Cookbook: 50 Delicious (and Secretly Healthy) Recipes Kids Will Love to Make by Noelle Martin
Library Catalog
While there's no shortage of books telling us how to help babies eat, we've been left to fend for ourselves as we try to teach our tweens to eat well. Noelle's book fills a much-needed void with age-appropriate recipes and nutrition information that will set up our tweens for a lifelong positive relationship with whole nutritious food. – Jennifer Anderson, MSPH, RDN