MUNCHING: POEMS ABOUT EATING selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins

Author Lee Bennett Hopkins
Photo by Charles Egita

Hopkins, Lee Bennett, trans. 1985. MUNCHING: POEMS ABOUT EATING. Ill. by Nelle Davis. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. ISBN 0316372692

Review

This compilation is a playful read about foods and eating.  Readers will enjoy poetry about eating foods, wanting foods, preparing foods, and playing with foods!  Most of the poems are short and contain vocabulary for early readers. 

The meaning of the book is concrete as all of the poetry pertains to physical acts of or with food.  Some authors use figurative language like similes and metaphors.  The poem, Artichoke by Maxine W. Kumin, compares artichokes to jokes and games.  Fruited Rainbow by Charles Egita compares a fruit salad to a rainbow.  Others use hyperbole to appeal to readers in the poems The Pizza by Ogden Nash and The Perfect Turkey Sandwich by Steven Kroll. 

True rhyme is commonly used throughout the collection. In Spaghetti! Spaghetti! By Jack Prelutsky, the writer “can’t get enough” of the “wonderful stuff.”  Cake by David McCord uses assonance, “Take cake: a very easy rhyme for bake.”  Fun to read, this group of poems by well known and credible authors shows young readers just how much fun you can have with your food!

To name just a few of the authors included in the book, Ogden Nash, was noted by the New York Times as the country’s best known producer of humorous poetry. JackPrelutsky was awarded the Children’s Poet Laureate Award. During her career, Maxine W. Kumin was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. 

Poetry in Action:

Introducing the Poem:  With construction paper, help students create a food by cutting and gluing paper.  For example, students can cut and glue pizza toppings onto a pizza slice.  Ask students what their favorite food is to eat.

Follow up Activity:  Ask students when they are in the mood for food?  Teach students about meal times like breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Have a felt chart (or something similar) with three columns labeled breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  With felt foods, have students place the foods in the meal time that they would like to eat it. 

The Clean Platter by Ogden Nash

Bring salad or sausage or scone,

A berry or even a beat,

Bring an oyster, an egg, or a bone,

As long as it’s something to eat.

If its food,

Its food;

Nevermind what kind of food.

Through thick and through thin

I am constantly in

The mood

For food.