
How Martha Saved Her Parents from Green Beans

It’s Friday and here’s my choice for Perfect Picture Book Fridays:
How Martha Saved Her Parents from Green Beans
By David LaRochelle
Pictures by Mark Fearing
Dial Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2013
Fiction
Suitable for ages: 3 and up
Themes/Topics: Picky Eater, Family
Opening Line: Every Tuesday evening Martha’s family had green beans for dinner.
Synopsis from Amazon: Martha HATES green beans. When some mean, green bandits stroll into town, anyone who ever said “Eat your green beans” is in big trouble. But when the beans kidnap Martha’s parents, Martha is forced to take action. She can think of only one way to stop the villainous veggies from taking over her town, and it’s not pretty … or tasty. Featuring absurdly funny text and illustrations with attitude, this is a hilarious read for everyone – even the pickiest of eaters.
Link to resources: Play with your food — act out how Martha saves her parents! David LaRochelle has a links to coloring pages and how to make a “Wanted” poster for mean beans.
Why I like this book: We are going through a food stage that includes little love for vegetables. We read this first at the dinner table before serving green beans. We didn’t plan that, but it worked out nicely. If mean green beans kidnap us, I’m not sure Enzo would do what Martha did in the book! In other words, we’d be tied up in a cave for a very, very, very long time. I’m sure he’ll eat green beans one day.
For more PPBF selections, visit Susanna Leonard Hill’s blog.
How is everyone doing with the PiBoIdMo and NaNoWriMo challenges? We are in the middle. I feel like I’m a little saggy, but I am staying on track. I always write down a ton of ideas. No joke, I’m at around 75 and have one draft written. I owe a lot of ideas to the day of sickness. Not much else to do but think and tap out ideas on the iPhone.