'War and Peas' by Michael Foreman, one of the great British children's illustrators. His watercolours are so lovely you could almost eat them, just as members of the target audience have been trying to do for decades.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
There aren't many great passages written about food, but I love one by George Millar, who worked for the SOE in the second world war and wrote a book called 'Horned Pigeon.' He had been on the run and hadn't eaten for a week, and his description of the cheese fondue he smells in the peasant kitchen of a house in eastern France is unbelievable.
You might want to write 'War and Peace,' but that might not be who you are. You might be better off with nursery rhymes.
Children's literature is one of my joys, and it's also my mental comfort food.
When I was younger, I read all the great food memoirs, by M.F.K. Fisher and Laurie Colwin and Julia Child and Nicolas Freeling and Ruth Reichl, and felt flooded with a sense of comfort and safety.
'The Brownies and the Goblins' is the only book I recall from my early childhood and is the inspiration for a children's book I wrote in the 1980s titled 'The Magic Spectacles.'
My parents would read those books to me as well but they used to make me starving when I was a kid because they were always eating ham sandwiches with the crusts off and drinking ginger beer.
Lloyd Alexander's tales were written and published when I was in diapers. Decades later, they remain utterly timeless for me. I cannot recommend them enough.
The first book I ever bought for myself was 'One Fish Two Fish' by Dr. Seuss. My favourite page shows two children carrying an enormous glass jar up some stairs in the dark. In the jar is a tusked beflippered creature floating in brine.
Green Eggs and Ham was the story of my life. I wouldn't eat a thing when I was a kid, but Dr. Seuss inspired me to try cauliflower!
I must confess that I'm not a great reader. At the moment I'm reading my son's 'Stig of the Dump' by Clive King and I've got a plant catalogue on the go.