Look and cook A cookbook for children

New cookbooks serve up all the tips and recipes a young chef might knead. Vintage illustrations from the 1900s through 1960s dress up the classic fare found in Look and Cook: A Cookbook for Children by Tina Davis, which also grace the spiffy cover that conceals a handy spiral binding. Beginning with tips for measuring correctly and cooking safely, the pages brim with recipes for soup, entr?es and grand finales-including all-American standards, from Tuna Noodle Casserole to Apple Pie. Blank pages at the end leave room for new favorites, to attract new generations of hungry mouths to the dinner table. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Gr 4-8-Filled with recipes for old-fashioned dishes like tuna casserole, cream of tomato soup, and gingerbread men, this attractively designed cookbook may appeal more to nostalgic adults than to children. The selection of recipes is long on sweets and shy on fresh vegetables and fruit. There's no denying the appeal factor of much of this comfort food, and the step-by-step directions are usually clear, although adult help and some knowledge of cooking will be required for many of the dishes. For instance, to make baked macaroni and cheese, readers are not told to stir the sauce after adding the milk, a pretty significant omission. It's a plus that there are extras like safety tips, measurement equivalents, and how to set a table. However, the vintage illustrations in these sections don't show any of the modern equipment called for in some of the recipes. The author has apparently scoured old cookbooks for the very spiffy pictures (mostly from the 1920s through the 1950s) and has put the whole together in a book that pulls off being a great meld of elegant and kitschy. Yet it may be best suited as a gift item (there are pages at the back where readers can write in their own favorite recipes). It's aesthetically pleasing, though, so consider this if you purchase for large collections.-Lauralyn Persson, Wilmette Public Library, IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.