Good Enough to Eat

by Lizzy Rockwell

Did you know that Carbohydrates supply most of the energy your body uses? You should drink at least 5 glasses of water every day? The mineral iron is found in foods cooked in iron pans? 3 slices of bread contain 200 calories? Jam-packed with fascinating facts such as the ones above, Good Enough to Eat is uniquely designed to satisfy kids' love of food, and their curiosity about how their bodies work. This book offers all of the basics found in an adult nutrition guide in a format designed specifically for kids. Lizzy Rockwell has filled Good Enough to Eat with funny speech bubbles, detailed illustrations, and an engaging cast of children who munch their way across the pages while explaining everything from why your body needs protein to the food pyramid and how to use it. You'll even find hands-on experiments that test food for fat and reveal the differences between starch and sweet carbohydrates, and recipes using the nutritious foods that children need in their daily diet.

Genres: Nutrition, Food, Health, Picture Books, Nonfiction, Childrens, Science

40 pages, Hardcover

First published February 12, 1999

About the author

Lizzy Rockwell is an illustrator whose artwork can be seen in picture books, magazines, games and on walls. She studied art and art history at Connecticut College, and drawing and illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Lizzy is the illustrator of over 25 children's books by a variety of authors including her mother, Anne Rockwell. She is the author/illustrator of eleven books including The All-Together Quilt, Plants Feed Me, How Do You Feel?, Good Enough to Eat: A Kid's Guide to Food and Nutrition, and The Busy Body Book: A Kid's Guide to Fitness.

Lizzy has two grown sons, and lives and works in Bridgeport, CT with her husband, Ken Alcorn, a high school social studies teacher. Lizzy likes to quilt, cook, hike, paddle, and grow things in her garden.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic first book on nutrition! So important to get young children thinking about eating healthy. This book gives just enough information to a small child that they will feel as if they are helping to plan family meals - a great way to get them involved on a better nutritional plan for the whole family.

[Nicole Doerr · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best non fiction book for children to explore food and nutrition. This was intended for preschoolers and school aged children. Lizzy Rockwell did an amazing job putting it into perspective for the audience. "Good Enough to Eat" explores, the functions of each nutrient (carbohydrates, protein, aft, water, vitamins, and minerals), how we digest, how much food we need, and all about calories. The illustration are extremely detailed and range from all over. They are colorful, fun and relate to the topic being discussed. My favorite thing about this book is that it includes some healthy recipes toward the back of the book. This would be wonderful to do a cooking lesson on. This book would be my number one choice when trying to explain the children the importance of eating healthy. I would strongly encourage all parents and educators to use and recommend this book to children

[Ruth Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good habits should begin early! This book will help kids learn all about the food nutrient groups - carbohydrates, protein, fat, water, vitamins, and minerals. Then they can use this information, as well as that gleaned from the food pyramid to make healthy food choices for their bodies. Lots of information in this book is included in the pictures, especially which foods contain which nutrients. By using pictures and speech bubbles, lots of information is given to children in a format that they will find easy to understand and enjoy!

[Mazie Lu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informational.
This was a great book- it had a good balance of information as well as pictures. I thought it was well written and very informative but also written and presented in an interesting way. Awesome to help kids learn about nutrition.

[What April's Reading · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Enough to Eat is a fun book showing kids appropriate foods and vitamins for nutrition. This book does put a heavy focus on carbohydrates being most important for energy, then showing pictures of cereal, breads, etc, instead of focusing on healthy fruits and vegetables that are a better carb option. I'm not a fan of the food pyramid, so my kids and I discussed things through the book that would be better options.

Overall, very cute book with a lot of great, but simple information inside and even some recipes in the back!

[Victoria Bottoms · Rating 5 out of 5]

Summary: Good enough to eat tells readers about all of the different nutrients that a person needs in order to be healthy (proteins, fats, mineral, vitamins, grains, fruits, and vegetables). This book gave readers a really good summary of what each nutrient does for your body. It also gives readers really cute illustrations to look at that shows readers how much of each nutrient you need. The book also gives readers very simple experiments to do with food as well as recipes to try.

Evaluation: I really enjoyed this book, I think that a lot of times teachers avoid teaching about nutrients because they are complex and harder to understand. However, this book put it in really easy to understand terms and included very helpful, yet very cute illustrations. I also liked how the book gave students little experiments to try with food because it shows that science is all around us. Finally, I liked the inclusion of recipes to try at home.

Teaching Point: I think it would be really awesome if the PE teacher read this book to the students and talked about healthy eating. I think that often times students separate health and PE from reading, but it would be cool to show them that reading can help in all areas of life.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good book with cute illustrations and creative descriptions to excite children about what nutrients are doing for the body. But once again, like so many authors of these types of books, Lizzy Rockwell gets caught up in the elements of the food pyramid and once again, gives fat a bad name and uses fat-free ingredients in the recipes she supplies in the back. ARGGGGG....I think I will need to make my own book!

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

My girls loved this book. They learned so much, as did I. It explains things in a way that kids can understand. My kids are constantly telling my what their body needs and how they can get it. So great!

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it's packed with a little too much information to digest (har) per page but overall it gives some great tips on eathing healthy and what is in our food. Perfect for preschoolers and early grades.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author Lizzy Rockwell has put out another great non-fiction book young - middle-aged children. I admit that I learned a few new things, too! Her illustrations do a super job of complementing the text and clarifying the information.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

45 months - not everything in this book is completely accurate (dated) nor do we buy into carbs being that good for us compared to protein and fats but it's simple and easy for kids to understand and I think O got a lot out of it.

[Cyrus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teaching children about nutrition at a young age is vital to healthy eating later in life.

[Cece · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book to read to students to discuss good nutrition and the food guide pyramid.

[Maria]

good discussion of vitamins, proteins, fiber etc.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty well-written about nutrition and digestion. We were pleasantly surprised.

[Lewiston-Altura Librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good and clear explanation of nutrients. I used with first graders followed by a nutrition matching games on my SmartBoard.

[Kelsey Bigelow · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read for early to mid - elementary school age students about nutrition and food.

[Alexa Poulter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the pictures of the foods to give a visual representation for the child

[Megan Charlton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story demonstrates the importance of eating healthy foods through an introduction to good nutrition. This book should be beneficial to grades K-3. The illustrations may seem too young for grade 3, but the book is full of content that could be drawn back to science content for any grade. The book goes over carbohydrates, proteins, fats, minerals, and the benefits each macronutrient has on the body in an easy way to comprehend. It also introduces children to the idea of our digestive system and each main body part involved, as well as the benefit of water. There are many good parts of the story to focus on and maybe do supporting activities with! It also shows the difference between healthy foods and sweets, and the reasons why sweets are not the best food for you through talking about energy.
The colors in this picturebook were very bright, mainly oranges, yellows, and blues. I thought it was very interesting how there was a lot of orange, but not much green, considering healthy food. I wonder if this is because children may associate green with vegetables and vegetables are bad. Oranges and yellows show optimism and happiness, possibly making healthy foods seem more approachable. This can be related back to Nodelman’s essay, when he describes color and visual perception. Children do not see things like adults do, therefore they are able to take something out of the brightness and colors of the illustrations, rather than the drawings or words of the story (130).

[Allie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a great way to introduce the different food groups and the important nutrient value each food category has. It used a more advanced vocabulary but still age appropriate for kids to understand the importance of eating well and all the benefits it has. It did a great job of explaining the different food groups, their nutritional value, how our body digests food, what calories are, and keeping a balanced diet.

[Hannah Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genre: informational
Reading level: 3-4

This is a really neat informational book! It presents very practical and useful information on food and nutrition. I think students would enjoy reading this as there is very neat illustrations and the information is presented in a easy to read format. I would consider adding this to my future classroom library.

[Lannett Boateng · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book did an amazing job explaining what are good foods to eat and the different categories of MyPlate. It really broke it down for the children to understand the different foods in the groups and what nutrients each category provides their body with. Also broke down digestion which I thought made the book even better.

[Dew Park · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book is good for children to explore food and nutrition. Also, the illustrations are very detailed and range from all over. The most impressive thing to me was the book included some healthy recipes toward the back of the book. After reading the book, you can try cooking with your children.

[Sarah Lancaster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grade: 4th-6th
Genre: Informational

I loved this interesting book! A friend of mine used it with her kids! I liked how it give details on all foods that we eat and why they are considered healthy! I recommend using this when teaching children about health and their bodies! Great science lesson!

[Tami Speakman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very informative. You may loss the kids in your class if you just read the book straight through because it is a lot of information given all at once. It does demonstrate to the child what happens if they eat certain foods and how our body works to digest everything we eat.

[Marjury · Rating 5 out of 5]

This cute book has appealing pictures and kid-friendly recipes that will allow kids to enjoy eating while also learning about aspects about food like what certain nutrition does for the body, how you gain energy from it, and how it benefits you overall.

[Kim Redington · Rating 4 out of 5]

This books gives a guide to proper nutrition for kids and families! The author discusses protein, carbohydrates, fats, minerals, vitamins and water. At the end of the book, there are recipes to look at and try as a family!

[Eman Ammar]

👌👍

[Tabitha Hardin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative!! I would encourage all parents and teachers to use this book for teaching children about the importance of nutrients. This book is very easy for young children to understand.

[Josephine Awak · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book generally talks about nutrition. Helping both kids, parents, teachers as emphasis on the different reactions towards hunger, healthy eating, and nutritional content.