Yum! ¡Mmmm! ¡Qué Rico!

The Bibliography
Mora, Pat. 2007. Yum! ¡Mmmm! ¡Qué Rico! Ill. by Rafael López. New York: Lee and Low Books. 9781584302711

The Poetry
haiku

The Plot
This is a book of short and deliciously sweet haiku poems about food grown in North, Central and South America.

The Theme
foods from the Americas

The Style
Yum! ¡Mmmm! ¡Qué Rico! is a book of food haiku. In addition to a short poem about each food item, there is also a brief bit of information about where each food comes from.

The Analysis
This book is beautifully illustrated in acrylic on wood panels. The bright colors are reminiscent of Mexico and South America, bright oranges, yellows, greens and reds. The poems are cute and the information provided about each type of food is very interesting! Just as an example, I didn't know that papayas could grow to weigh 20 pounds!

The Cultural Markers
Illustrations: The illustrations in the book show the poems in vivid detail. The poem about the chile has a Mexican man breathing fire in the desert because chiles are hot! The poem about the potato shows what appears to be a South American girl and a girl from the United States sprinkling salt and pepper on a mound of mashed potatoes. Since potatoes come from South America but are now a staple in the United States as well, it seems only necessary that there are these types of girls illustrated for this poem. Each poem is illustrated like that, showing vividly about the origin of each food.

Text: Each food item discussed in Yum ¡Mmmm! ¡Qué Rico! is from a different country, mostly from Central and South America. Each description tells where the food is from and a little bit of unique information about the countries or cultures of origin. In most cases, there is an interesting tidbit about the food, too, such as the following: "Today the starch from corn kernels is used as a binder to help crayons and chalk hold together." Did you know that?

The Review
Julie Cummins (Booklist, Dec. 1, 2007 (Vol. 104, No. 7))
Starred Review* This inventive stew of food haiku celebrates the indigenous foods of the Americas. Each of the 13 poems appears on a gloriously colorful double-page spread, accompanied by a sidebar that presents information about the origin of the food. From blueberries to prickly pears to corn, the acrylic-on-wood-panel illustrations burst with vivid colors and stylized Mexican flair. The poems capture the flavor of the item in a way children can easily understand—Chocolate: Fudge, cake, pie, cookies. / Brown magic melts on your tongue. / Happy, your eyes dance; Pineapple: A stiff, spiky hat / on thick prickly skin, inside / hide syrupy rings. The print of the text in the sidebars is too small, but otherwise this will provide lots and lots of lip-smacking fun that teachers can use to supplement social studies and language arts units; they can also share one poem at a time, between other subjects. An author’s note, which addresses lingering scientific debate about the geographical origins of some of the featured foods, also includes a warm celebration of diversity: We do know that all these plants were grown and enjoyed . . . long before Christopher Columbus or any other Europeans had ever tasted such wonderful foods. The world’s variety is amazing—and delicious.

The Connection
This book is full of yummy foods - blueberries, chiles, chocolate, corn, cranberries, papayas, peanuts, pecans, pineapples, potatoes, prickly pears, pumpkins, tomatoes and vanilla. It would be fun to share these foods with kids as we read the poems. Also, there is a website called The Dairy Lama (dairylama.com) where people can share and have shared haiku poems about cheese! This would be fitting since all the poems in this book are about food.