Here are 100 books that Short & Sweet fans have personally recommended if you like
Short & Sweet.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I’m an author, playwright, nonprofit strategist, and mother to two small children–the list goes on and on, and it's enough to work up an appetite. Since three of my favorite things in the world are 1) my kids, 2) stories, and 3) food, this reading roundup is near and dear to my heart. I wrote my picture book, Do Not Eat This Book!, because I believe food is a delicious entryway for exploring identity, sharing, caring, culture, and more, and the books in this list exemplify the sweet power of a good food-themed picture book.
We’re starting and ending with something silly but special. This book is about a food… who is picky about food!
In the Pea household, candy is yucky, and VEGETABLES are the delicious treat, which always makes my littles giggle. If you have picky eaters in your household, this book is a fun way to talk about how different people (or pea-ple!) have different tastes, but it’s important to eat a variety of foods. And it’s great to laugh while doing so!
Ten years ago, Amy Krouse Rosenthal burst into children's books with Little Pea, a book destined to become a classic. Her witty text about a little pea who won't eat his sweets combined with the whimsical yet warm hearted art by Jen Corace create a go-to baby gift, a hilarious read-aloud and the perfect intervention for picky eaters.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I love a good pun and have written a joke book all about food called Lettuce Laugh. I think food is relatable to kids and they can put themselves in the food’s shoes and learn about friendship and being true to themselves through talking food characters. Humor plays a big part in the books I recommended, but it’s a great way to deliver a lasting message. Another book I wrote is also about food - Jalapeño Bagels, but unlike Bagel In Love, these bagels don’t talk! I love Bagel In Love so much I had a dress made with some of the characters embroidered on it.
When I hear bad grammar, I cringe. So this book was cringeworthy, but because it was done in a silly way to show bad grammar and how to correct it, it was very clever. A yam tries to get a donkey with poor grammar to speak correctly. When his vegetable friends butt in to see what the fight is about, the donkey has the last word.
"I YAM a donkey!" said Donkey. "I AM a donkey!" replied Yam. "You is a donkey too?"
A Yam who hates sloppy pronunciation and poor grammar triest his hardest to correct an ungrammatical donkey. An escalating series of misunderstandings leaves the yam furious and the clueless donkey bewildered by the yam's growing (and amusing) frustration. The yam finally gets his point across, but regrettably, he's made the situation a little bit too clear... and the story ends with a dark and outrageously funny twist.
I love a good pun and have written a joke book all about food called Lettuce Laugh. I think food is relatable to kids and they can put themselves in the food’s shoes and learn about friendship and being true to themselves through talking food characters. Humor plays a big part in the books I recommended, but it’s a great way to deliver a lasting message. Another book I wrote is also about food - Jalapeño Bagels, but unlike Bagel In Love, these bagels don’t talk! I love Bagel In Love so much I had a dress made with some of the characters embroidered on it.
This book is hilarious! Arnie the Doughnut is at the bowling alley cheering on his friend, Mr. Bing, in a bowling tournament when Mr. Bing starts throwing gutter balls and his team is about to lose. Arnie figures out that Mr. Bing’s bowling ball is being disguised as his new bowling ball and saves the team’s score. There are tons of funny side comments and the story is told with lots of energy. Kids will love this early chapter book.
As Mr. Bing's new pet "doughnut dog," Arnie couldn't be happier. When Mr. Bing joins a bowling league, Arnie gets to go along to practices and competitions. But then Mr. Bing starts rolling gutter balls. Someone or something is behind the madness. Arnie, together with his team of goofball friends, must sort through the shenanigans and solve the mystery. Get ready for some sleuthing and even some magic.
Full of Laurie Keller's winning charm and silly humor, this chapter book―the first in the series―is sure to please her many fans. This title has Common Core connections.
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I love a good pun and have written a joke book all about food called Lettuce Laugh. I think food is relatable to kids and they can put themselves in the food’s shoes and learn about friendship and being true to themselves through talking food characters. Humor plays a big part in the books I recommended, but it’s a great way to deliver a lasting message. Another book I wrote is also about food - Jalapeño Bagels, but unlike Bagel In Love, these bagels don’t talk! I love Bagel In Love so much I had a dress made with some of the characters embroidered on it.
For youngsters ages 2 to 5 learning concepts, this board book is bright and fun and focuses on animated food to illustrate opposites. What I love is the clever side comments by the food. And their eyes that look like googly eyes. I love googly eyes. These friendly foods will give kids food for thought!
1
author picked
Nom Nom
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
1,
2,
3, and
4.
What is this book about?
Nom Nom Opposites gives young minds food for thought—literally! Kids who love Shopkins and Num Noms will enjoy learning their opposites with the help and encouragement of adorable picnic food characters found throughout. Even the book feels like food packaging with an acetate window on the front cover hinting at the delicious contents inside. It's food. It's education. It's cute. It's Nom Nom Knowledge!
I am the daughter of a health food fanatic whose admonitions about what to eat manifested in my early attraction to all food junky. Later in life, I became a bit of a food snob, shopping regularly at the farmers’ market for the freshest and most delicious fruits and vegetables I’ve ever tasted. My love of both good food and sharp analysis came to shape my career as an academic. Food became the object of my analyses, but always with an eye toward contradiction. I’ve written several books and articles exploring how capitalism constrains needed food system transformations, bringing me to my latest fascination with the tech sector.
I am a huge fan of Freidberg’s writing. Sure, she’s an academic (so is everyone on my list), but her turns of phrase are unusually witty and—well, fresh.
I love this book because it examines our current obsession with fresh food and shows how much technology has been employed to make it so, starting with the refrigerator! But that’s not all. Freidberg provides enjoyable histories of how beef, eggs, fruit, vegetables, milk, and fish have all been engineered and marketed to give the appearance of freshness.
That rosy tomato perched on your plate in December is at the end of a great journey-not just over land and sea, but across a vast and varied cultural history. This is the territory charted in Fresh. Opening the door of an ordinary refrigerator, it tells the curious story of the quality stored inside: freshness.
We want fresh foods to keep us healthy, and to connect us to nature and community. We also want them convenient, pretty, and cheap. Fresh traces our paradoxical hunger to its roots in the rise of mass consumption, when freshness seemed both proof of and…
I used to write a food blog because I love stories about food, be they fiction or non-fiction. Food has the power to bring joy, healing, love, anger, sadness, etc.—you name the emotion and food can evoke it or remedy it. I’ve suffered from depression most of my life and the kitchen makes me feel better. Hearing that my chocolate cookies are amazing heals my heart a little at a time. Food and emotion go together like peanut butter and jelly, and I’m the first to pick up a book that skillfully employs both.
Speaking of weird…Kenny Shopsin is a force. If you haven’t seen it, there’s a documentary about his New York restaurant called “I Like Killing Flies” and it is like no other restaurant to ever exist. Shopsin breaks every restaurant rule that ever was. He makes “crepes” using flour tortillas. His specialty is a dish called “Blisters on my Sisters.” He’s hilarious, quintessentially New York, and absolutely bonkers. It’s one of my life’s regrets that I never got to eat at Shopsins. This book is the closest I can ever get.
P.S. The best part of the book is the absolutely priceless copy of the Shopsins menu which could take a week to read and a lifetime to digest. You could cook a different item from it every meal for five years and still not make it all the way through.
Oh, and did I mention that his kitchen was approximately…
"Pancakes are a luxury, like smoking marijuana or having sex. That’s why I came up with the names Ho Cakes and Slutty Cakes. These are extra decadent, but in a way, every pancake is a Ho Cake.” Thus speaks Kenny Shopsin, legendary (and legendarily eccentric, ill-tempered, and lovable) chef and owner of the Greenwich Village restaurant (and institution), Shopsin’s, which has been in existence since 1971.
Kenny has finally put together his 900-plus-item menu and his unique philosophy—imagine Elizabeth David crossed with Richard Pryor—to create Eat Me, the most profound and profane cookbook you’ll ever read. His rants—on everything from…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
As a children’s book author, a parent and a teacher for small children, one of the greatest things about children’s media is the friendships that develop among some of the most unusual characters. Like a sea sponge and a starfish in SpongeBob Squarepants, a mouse, and a dog with Mickey Mouse and Pluto. This of course extends into children’s books and it’s an extension of how young children don’t concern themselves with how different the other person is, they focus on what is the same. Something people should hold onto as they grow but often don’t.
Peanut Butter has just moved to town and is searching for a friend to play ball with. He talks about Hamburger, Soup, French Fries, and Cupcake, but they are all too busy. Finally, he meets Jelly, and of course, they click and play ball. Before long, all the others see them playing and want to join in. In no time, Peanut Butter has all the friends he could want.
The story is so charming, but what really makes this book shine is the art. Terry Border is an American artist known for his unique, funny, and really creative sculptures, often of food, using wire and other materials. The art creates such a wonderful and engaging book. My students absolutely loved this book.
For fans of The Day the Crayons Quit, Little Pea, or How Are You Peeling?
What’s a little piece of bread to do when he’s feeling lonely? Find a friend, of course!
And that’s exactly what Peanut Butter tries to do. But sometimes friends are hard to come by, especially when Hamburger has to walk his (hot) dogs, Cupcake is too busy building castles in her sprinkle box, and Egg laughs so hard he starts to crack up! Does Peanut Butter have a soulmate? Young readers will know the answer long before Peanut Butter does and laugh along with each…
As an archaeologist for over 50 years, I specialized in Household Archaeology, the branch of archaeology that investigates daily life. I was born and spent my childhood in British Mandatorial Palestine and then grew up to adulthood in Israel after it was founded. I spent many years as a kibbutz member in the Northern Negev living near the Bedouin. These experiences brought me close to pre-industrial societies. All my life I was surrounded by archaeological sites, taught biblical archaeology for over 40 years in college and wrote several books and articles on subjects related to daily life in biblical times.
The Mediterranean Diet, the basis of which is formed by the Israelite diet, is something many people talk about. Although I had a chance to write articles and present papers on the Israelite diet, this book covers the subject and answers many related questions in a very thorough way: What did the ancient Israelites eat, and how much? The author carefully sifts through all the relevant evidence—biblical, archaeological, anthropological, environmental—to uncover what the people of biblical times really ate and how healthy (or unhealthy) it was.
What food did the ancient Israelites eat, and how much of it did they consume? That's a seemingly simple question, but it's actually a complex topic. In this fascinating book Nathan MacDonald carefully sifts through all the relevant evidence -- biblical, archaeological, anthropological, environmental -- to uncover what the people of biblical times really ate and how healthy (or unhealthy) it was.
Engagingly written for general readers, What Did the Ancient Israelites Eat? is nonetheless the fruit of extensive scholarly research; the book's substantial bibliography and endnotes point interested readers to a host of original sources. Including an archaeological timeline…
I’ve been interested in diets ever since I watched my mom diet while I was growing up. For decades, I enthusiastically jumped on the diet roller coaster myself, and thus began my quest to find the “perfect” way to eat. Not one of these “diets” ever worked for me for long-term weight loss, however, and I became more and more confused about what I “should” be eating. Finally, I was able to lose over 80 pounds thanks to intermittent fasting, but I was still confused about what I should be eating. Once I figured out the when (intermittent fasting), the what followed, thanks to the work of these authors.
Tim Spector is a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London and one of my favorite health researchers. In Spoon-Fed, Dr. Spector examines top myths about health, such as “nutritional guidelines and diet plans apply to everyone,” “calories accurately measure how fattening a food is,” and “gluten is dangerous.”
Everything we've been told about our diets is wrong
Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day? Is there any point in counting calories? Is there any evidence that coffee is bad for you?
Through his pioneering scientific research, Tim Spector busts these myths and combats food fake news. Spoon-Fed explores the scandalous lack of good science behind many medical and government diet recommendations, and how the food industry holds sway over these policies and our choices.
Spoon-Fed is a groundbreaking book that forces us to question every diet plan, official recommendation, miracle cure…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
It’s now fifty years or so since I started growing my own fruit and vegetables so as to have the freshest, best quality ingredients for my home cooking and making my own wine and beer. But I was always asking myself why things were done in a certain way: what was the science behind what was going on? I’ve always loved science for its own sake, but I believe such knowledge enhances appreciation. That’s why, when today’s new interest in vineyard geology took off, I put together my own book on that subject, and it’s why I’m enlightened by the books I list here.
Twenty years old and still the Bible for me. It’s all here. I used to wonder why we did things in the kitchen in a certain way, but now I know. The author doesn’t flinch from the hard science and, besides explaining so many things, that enables him to explode a number of common kitchen myths (searing meat doesn’t seal in the juices) and provide lots of practical advice for the home kitchen.
Other supposedly food and science books have come and gone, but McGee remains my go-to source.
An updated twentieth-anniversary edition of the classic culinary reference features ninety percent new material and provides a wealth of kitchen tips, food-preparation techniques, folklore, literary anecdotes, and health information, in a volume that features particular coverage of trends from the p
