Food & Digestion Topic (KS2)

There’s so much to like about this colourful picturebook: the lively illustrations, including endpapers; the different fonts which are almost as expressive as the text and conjure up beautifully the scents and sounds of Caribbean culture, the warmth conveyed by artful storytelling, warmth which derives from Faruq’s relationship with the characters who shape his culinary (and boyhood) journey; not to mention the addition of a recipe for lime cookies.

This is a story to make your mouth and your eyes water – as if witness to the work of cooking up a sumptuous family feast and then finding yourself invited too. It’s a book that lends itself to being read aloud in class or at home (and even more so if the dialect sounds authentic). It would also work well in a nurture group setting, allowing the children a hand at making some of the food and as a celebration of different cultures.

A gently unfolding detective story that delicately unpacks themes of food poverty, friendship and the importance of community spaces. Author Ewa Jozefkowicz says of the book, ‘The pandemic has had a huge impact on food insecurity, with as many as 2.3 million children now affected. So through my book, as well as telling a story, I wanted to highlight the importance of community and to show all readers that they shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help if they need it.’
This is a relatively quick read – but a deeply satisfying one – that will appeal to readers who enjoy true-to-life stories, a mystery to solve and gentle storytelling that explores real-world issues.

This is an unusual illustrated non-fiction book all about food and eating around the world. This book goes beyond the usual sections one might expect to find in a non-fiction book about food. There are pages about eating utensils, smelly food, specific foods such as bananas and noodles and spices. Each page uses rich descriptive language and manages to conjure up the smells, tastes and sights of unusual food from around the world.

What is particularly useful are the handy phonetic pronunciation guides for each food. The list of different countries covered is diverse and includes countries like Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Peru and Albania. Helpfully, at the end of the book, there is a world map with all of the 69 countries mentioned highlighted.

The book is simply illustrated with bold and clear pictures of the food and of children eating and enjoying food. On the final pages, there is mention of climate change and how food will change in the future, including some interesting insect-eating illustrations here.

The language will appeal to children in KS1, being both engaging but also clear and informative. The book provides interesting general facts, such as how many varieties of rice there are, but also unusual and specific examples that illustrate the general facts, including a variety of rice dishes from around the world.

World of Food is a bright, colourful and well-laid-out non-fiction book that introduces children to the fascinating journey that food takes before it reaches their plate.  It covers this from a historical and modern point of view.  Historically, it talks about the Stone Age, Roman banquets and the Silk Road.  It also helpfully indicates both the similarities and diversities of our current diets.  For example, the pages on dairy and grains cover a lot of the different worldwide breads and dairy-producing animals.

Each spread is clear and contains a single topic.  My Year 3 class found these spreads very useful when they were researching and preparing presentations on the different types of food produced in the UK.  It would also be useful if comparing diets around the world.  For example, the pages on fruit cover fruit from many locations. The book does not shy away from introducing new vocabulary, I know now what a “drupe” and a “pome” are.

At the back of the book is a very thought-provoking section on issues in the world food supply such as greenhouse gases and the future of food.  There is also a recipe for bread. A detailed and colourful section on festival food introduces several religious and secular feasts: Christmas, Diwali, Passover, Eid, Thanksgiving and Chinese New Year.  This section is excellent as it describes the foods but also their place at the feast table. It is also broader than just European stereotypes, covering,  for example,  the Christmas foods of Ethiopia and Venezuela.

World of Food is a well-researched book with broad detail around its subject and would be an asset to any KS2 classroom.

It Takes Guts is a recommended book to support the teaching of digestion in Key Stage 2. The colourful and well-labelled diagrams provided clear examples and easy to access information.

The children in Year 4 were quick to find and remember key vocabulary. The book is great for allowing independent research into the digestive system and the children enjoyed finding out various facts.

Adam Kay’s ‘Amy Gets Eaten’ is a gruesome yet hilarious book explaining what happens in our bodies when we eat food. Despite getting eaten, Amy (a positive and chirpy piece of sweetcorn), explains in child-friendly language the journey she takes from the mouth, through the stomach and out again into the toilet. Although told in a narrative style, this is really a non-fiction book that teaches children the science behind some of our human anatomy.

Throughout the story, while travelling through the small intestine, a wise old raisin teaches the reader how different food types help to make your body strong, active and healthy. The children get opportunities to interact with the book and recap, through cartoons, where the sweetcorn has travelled. Readers are also invited to make opinions on the strange food combinations the character of Noah has chosen to eat. My children have read this over and over, and every storytime ends in fits of laughter—a highly recommended short picture book for younger primary children.

This beautiful, quirky, illustrated book begins by explaining what microbes are; giving examples to which most children will be able to relate, such as bacteria and viruses. It then builds on this with new vocabulary and concepts. Throughout the book, the author does not shy away from using scientific vocabulary but explains it in a way that is accessible and interesting to children. A lot of the text is presented as speech bubbles or information ‘blobs’ integrated into the illustrations which keep the reader’s attention and interest.

As the book progresses, the reader is taken on a journey through the human digestive system introducing the roles microbes play in our bodily processes and explaining how they can both keep us healthy and cause us to fall ill. There is a good dose of poo-related information that will capture the attention of even the most reluctant Upper Key Stage Two reader!

There are opportunities in the book for the reader to learn about how the food we choose to eat affects the microbes in our bodies. In addition, we are also prompted to think about issues such as the overuse of antibiotics and how microbe research might well help to solve common health problems in years to come.

This book would be great for building on LKS2 science knowledge or simply enjoyed because it’s a very interesting and fun read!

This is unapologetically and undeniably a book about poo.

It’s a fact-based science comic book, and likely to appeal to fans of “A Day in the Life of a Poo, a Gnu and You” and other books in that series. There’s a lot of information crammed in about the digestive system, including comparing the human digestive process with that of other animals. There’s also detailed discussion of how sewage is processed. It’s all presented in a cheerful comic style in full colour throughout the book, with a lot of jokes thrown in.

Instructions for how to draw the two main characters are a nice addition. The style makes the book accessible for a wide range of ages and reading abilities. The authors don’t shy away from using technical vocabulary about the digestive system, but do introduce and clearly explain any terms that are likely to be unfamiliar. There’s also a helpful glossary provided at the back.

The subject matter means this book won’t appeal to all children; it’s not a book for the squeamish. Those children that do choose to read it are likely to love it and will laugh and learn a lot along the way.