I LOVE DK

 

It has been a few years since I received my first DK book to review and since them I have received numerous gem that are precious in our homeschool as well as in our day to day life.    Today, I find myself pondering on which book I should present to you, my readers, from all the titles I have received so far.    There are so many choices that it is a bit difficult for me to pick only one.    So I am presenting you three of the books I really like from DK Canada.

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When it comes to baby and toddler meals, I am a huge fan of First Meals by Annabel Karmel.

When my oldest son was a baby we purchased an older edition of this book.   It was a marvelous book to own for us as we made purée at home.    The taste of these were so authentic to real food that when the transition time came around, our kids were not as fussy as other children we have observed through the years.   My husband was so amazed by the quality of the food we made for our babies that he often said that we needed to keep the book just in case one day he can’t eat regular food.    We still have our old copy of the book which I hope will be a blessing for my grand-kids.   This newer edition of the book contains over 200 tasty and healthy recipes that offer a balanced diet for babies and toddlers.    The recipes will help your little ones to develop the taste buds they will need in order to not become the fussy person in their adult life.    From the creamy vegetable purée to the sticky mango chicken you will find a humongous variety of ideas to introduce new flavors and textures in the mouth of your kids.

Let me tell you that my kids are not fussy eaters and they each love to try new food in their plates.    And kids do grow fast!   Now they are used to have healthy food in their plates and don’t hesitate to go for seconds when they can.

As babies	Today

So if you want to have kids who enjoy good meals and love to try new flavors in their mouth in order to develop a love for food, I strongly recommend the book First Meals from Annabel Karmel.   This book makes also a perfect gift for a baby shower for a future mom and dad.

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But kids grow up and one day you have to make a decision on how you will educate them.    In Ontario, you have numerous choices offered to parents – you can send them to public school (French or English), to Catholic school (French or English), to Christian school, to private school (French or English), and you can decide to homeschool.  We have chosen to go toward homeschooling after our oldest spent two years in the French Catholic board in JK and SK.    So having the opportunity to review books is a huge blessings for us.   Two books I have received from DK Canada allows us to expand our taste buds based on meals from different countries.

The first book I really enjoy with my family is Around the World Cookbook by Abigail Johnson Dodge.   This cookbook contains more than 50 international recipes for children ages 8 to 13 to make.   Yes this book has been written with kids in mind and will allow them to develop skills that will be essential as they grow up – cooking a meal.  

http://canadianladybugreviews.blogspot.ca/2011/07/around-world-cookbook.html

This adorable cookbook will allow you to experiment with your kids and discover meals from countries from around the world.   While cooking the meals, the kids will also learn more about the countries where the meals come from whether it is from Asia, India, Indonesia, Australasia, the Middle East, Africa, the Mediterranean, Russia, Northern Europe, South America, Mexico, the Caribbean, US and Canada. 

We have two recipes that have become part of our menu – the Pavlova and the Jamaican Jerk Chicken with the Mango Salsa  .  These two recipes are marked with sticky notes for quick access to the instructions to make them.   As my kids grow up, they use this book to discover techniques and skills for the kitchen as well as wonderful recipes.   They slowly build their own repertoire of recipes and I wouldn’t be surprise that they will cook the meals that have become a favorite in our home for their future spouses one day.

If you want your kids to become more versatile in the kitchen and surprise you with delicious and mouth-watering meals for supper, get them Around the World Cookbook.  You will be surprise with the meals they can prepare with simply instructions.   Each recipe is accompanied with a list of equipment needed and photo of the end result.   

Another cookbook that we have used in our homeschool would be the Jewish Holidays Cookbook.  No we are not Jewish but as part of our daily life we study the Bible – the kids are involved in Awana and memorize Scripture each week.    This cookbook will offer  recipes based on the Jewish Holidays.    It can be a great book to help a child raised in the Jewish faith to learn more about the Jewish history and heritage or for families interested in learning more about it.

My oldest son has a special assignment for a gold level in his Awana book a few years ago.  Thanks to the Jewish Holidays Cookbook, he decided to make Challah bread which is traditionally served at the beginning of the Shabbat dinner.   A prayer is said over the freshly baked bread before dinner is served.   It was surprisingly very easy to do.  More recently, our second son decided to tackle the same challenge and decided to make hamantaschen which are reminders of when Persian Jews were saved from Haman’s cruelty in the time of Queen Esther.

 

The Jewish Holidays cookbook contains festive meals for celebrating the year.   As homeschoolers and Christians, I find it important that my kids understand the history of Christianity and the fact that Jewish meals were important during Bible time.    We also have a special curriculum explaining the various Jewish holidays which I intend to use with this special cookbook!  Each holiday presented in this cookbook has between three to six recipes.  In a way you could plan a whole meal for a specific holiday based on the Jewish calendar.  

The holidays covered in this book are Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Hanukkah, Tu B’Shevat, Purim, Pesach, Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Lag B’Omer and Shavuot.  What I particularly like about this book is that it gives a little introduction on the holiday covered with the recipes.    It is unique and very creative I find.   Having included a Rabbi as well as a co-author was a marvelous idea.

This cookbook has also become a favourite in our household.    It allows the kids to expand their taste and try food of Jewish origins.  

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DK Canada would love to encourage you to review some of DK booksthat you love.   All you have to do is to send us a short review or shout out (one or two sentences) about your favourite DK book of all time and why you love it.  This could be done on a blog or using social media with a special hashtag.

On Valentine's Day DK Canada will select one of the reviews as a "winner" and that reviewer wins a $250 DK shopping spree where they get to choose $250 worth DK books of their choice.  Also as part of the promotion, 20 of the submitted reviews will be selected and DK Canada will create a boutique out of them for Valentine’s Day.  So don’t wait any longer,  post your own I Love DK review on Twitter with the hashtag #ILoveDK as well as on DK Canada facebook page between January 19 and February 4th.

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The books presented above are available at your favorite bookstore, even on amazon.ca and amazon.com.

  

  

  

Disclaimer: Thanks to DK Canada for the opportunity to participate to the I Love DK Promo. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.