Follow the Recipe: Poems About Imagination, Celebration, and Cake

Singer weaves the language of cooking with witty and poignant observations of the world in this collection of inventive recipes for sentiments and ideas. Expressed in both free verse and rhyme, poems in myriad forms invite readers into the state of attention required for both cooking and living a thoughtful life. They range from the meta (“recipe for a good recipe”) to the experiential (“recipes for enjoying the seasons”) and conceptual (“recipe for disaster”), offering moments of conventional but appealingly rendered wisdom. “Recipe for endurance” charges readers to “think of a time before blenders and mixers/ electrical fixers/ ...Keep stirring the pot.” Caldecott Honoree Priceman surrounds each poem with scenes of animals, flowers, children of varying ethnicities, and hand-lettering, rendered in a vibrant mix of gouache, collage, and block prints; together, it resembles the kind of scrapbook-esque recipe collection that one might inherit from a loved one. An inventive and artfully composed volume. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)