Cooking Wizardry for Kids

Title: Cooking Wizardary for Kids
Authors: Margaret Kenda and Phyllis S. Williams
ISBN: 0-8120-4409-6
Pages: 314 pgs.
Format: Cookbook (Non-Fiction)

Review:
This is a real cookbook for kids. Not only is it a book of recipes but it is also a basics in cooking type of book, with lots of how-tos and good basic knowledge about food, safety in the kitchen, and preparation tips. There is also lots of information about nutrition, portion sizes, building a well-balanced meal, and maintaining a balanced diet. This book has so many recipes from breakfast foods, to dinners, snacks, and baked goods. I thought it was very thorough in giving a good foundation to tweens on food preparation and cooking. One thing I thought was not quite age friendly was the amount of wording compared to the amount of images or illustrations on each page. I think a non-fiction book geared for tweens and kids aged 9-12 should include many more pictures to build more context on the topic. The authors should realize while their instructions are well written, most kids this age have very limited experience cooking, especially cooking independently. A how-to book should have way more images than this one does. Also I felt that initially the child using this book would need some adult assistance, especially since a lot of the recipes refer to previous lessons or recipes in the book and it requires a lot of flipping around from page to page. Overall, I thought this book was well written for the age group, it just needs a more pictures for kids to be able to use it on their own. I also thought that it was very gender neutral, which is nice, since most cooking books for kids tend to be geared for girls. The cover has a boy and girl cooking and many of the drawings in the book do as well. As a test I had my niece, perform one of the recipes in the book. She is 14 years old so a little over the recommended age group. She made the chocolate chips cookies. She has made them many times before from other recipes, but I think this one was a little easier for her to follow. The only confusing part was that this recipe called for "mix" which is a premade recipe for "mix" that can be used for brownies, other cookies, and cakes. Again, lots of flipping around and the recipes really need to be read completely in advance before attempting them, since it requires other previous steps. Overall, it is a good book for tweens, just needs a little restructuring. The cookies came out well without my help, and she has already been planning other things to make.