Play with Your Food by Joost Elffers

Ok, so this is not, technically, a childrens’ book. Nor is it what we here call a “reading” book (it’s a “looking” book). Our friend Ellen gave us this book about four years ago, and it gets pulled off the bookshelf almost daily.

You’ve probably seen Elffer’s work before, maybe the books that are actually for children (like Dog Food). This is basically a bunch of photos of fruits and vegetables, transformed into animals. A banana octopus, a bok choy dog, leek people, and lots of pumpkins. Every photo is a delight, and the section at the end on how to make the creatures always captivates Henry. We’ve never actually tried our hand at creating any food animals ourselves (I might have to put that in the summer jar), but maybe it’s because we continue to be enchanted by the examples in Play with Your Food and don’t see the need to try our own. This is one of those books I love for its imaginative push to see things a bit differently.