Product Description

People have been gobbling up yummy, nutritions raisins for centuries. Ancient Greeks and Romans awards them at sporting events and astronauts have taken raisins into space. Find out how grapes become raisins, who introduce the seedless grape, and the many uses for raisins.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1374033 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 32 pages

From School Library Journal
Grade 2-4-For the raisin-obsessed child, if there is such a creature, this book would be the ideal choice. Without that devouring passion, this title reads a bit like an advertising venture of the California Raisin Advisory Board (which leads the list in the author's thank-yous that include the Sun-Maid Growers of California). The book includes raisin history, agriculture, trivia, and even a few recipes. Brown's heavily stippled, marker-and-pastel illustrations are fanciful and sprightly. However, the rhymes are of dubious merit ("Do raisins grow in one place,/like Raisin Creek or Raisin Hill?/Is there a special town called/Raisinfield or Raisinville?") and alternate with a long, talky text that gives facts. Ryan stumbles with this title. It may be the ideal book for an assignment; otherwise, it's likely to languish on the shelf.
Dona Ratterree, New York City Public Schools
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
PreS-Gr. 2. Sticky and sweet, raisins are such a universally popular snack that they comes in boxes sized to fit a child's hand and have traveled to outer space with astronauts. In lighthearted, four-line rhyming queries, Ryan wonders where and how raisins grow and how they get from grape vines to grocery stores. Her questions are answered in no-nonsense text, with raisins' nutritional benefits, product development, and "a little raisin history" spelled out at the book's end. Brown's robustly colored art, with bold black lines and stippled details, energizes the text, depicting rows of grapevines stretching to the California horizon as well as the cutting, drying, and collecting processes. His whimsical pictures often play with the humorous rhymes, as when a contented raisin soaks in a tub of purple bubble bath with a yellow rubber duck. The no-bake recipes for raisin treats are a bonus to this delectable book, which, like its subject, packs a lot of value into a small package. Ellen Mandel
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Pam Munoz Ryan is the author of many children's books, including "Hello Ocean", "The Flag We Love", and Esperanza Rising (Scholastic), winner of the Pura Belpre Medal. She lives in California.

Customer Reviews

Reading teachers
Grades 5 and up. This informational text is listed for ages 4-8, but it really applies to older children based on the language and content. The style of questioning will engage the younger reader, but the answers and the humor may be lost on them. Older readers would have the background knowledge to appreciate the humor and style Munoz-Ryan uses to engage the reader about how raisins are "raised". This book could easily be used in an interdisciplinary unit. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of specific units in most curricula that lend itself to the study of raisins.