• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7
• Reading age: 9 to 12

All the food you eat, whether it's an apple or a steak or a chocolate-coated cricket, has a story.

Let's Eat uncovers the secret lives of our groceries, exploring alternative—and sometimes bizarre—farm technology and touring gardens up high on corporate rooftops and down low in military-style bunkers beneath city streets. Packed with interesting and sometimes startling facts on agriculture around the world, Let's Eat reveals everything from the size of the biggest farm in the world to how many pesticides are in a single grape to which insect people prefer to eat.

Kimberley Veness is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Adams Lake, British Columbia, with her partner and two children. Let's Eat is her first book. For more information, visit www.kimberleybveness.com.

Kimberley Veness' profile page

• Commended, Resource Links The Year's Best

"As we have come to expect, the design invites us to check out the many exceptional archival and contemporary photos provided, and the text is written to grab attention with small bits of useful information...Sidebars, as well as clearly captioned photos, suggestions for learning activities, and charts provide everything needed to guide us through this relevant and thoughtful book...I was quite proud to be able to share some of what I learned when reading this fine book."

Sal's Fiction Addiction blog

"Inviting, with generous use of quality photos and text presented in small chunks. Additional interesting information in sidebars and photo captions will catch a reader's eye."

CM Magazine

"An engaging addition to the Orca Footprints series...Veness avoids taking an overly dour tone when looking at negative aspects of the meat and agricultural industries and instead urges readers to take stock of how integrally connected this planet is while empowering them to think critically about the food they eat and where it comes from."

Publishers Weekly

"This book is packed with great photos, fun farming facts, tips to eat more sustainably, and ideas for projects such as how to set up a kid-sized food truck."

Concrete Garden

"The many clear, color photos and the author's sometimes conversational tone make the book more inviting, and the relative lack of information on this topic for middle-readers is another consideration for libraries."

Booklist

"Ideas are presented in a very well-designed book that is filled with enough interesting facts and pictures to keep it from feeling like a textbook. Vaness and Orca Footprints have done an excellent job of presenting a complex topic that is necessary for everyone to consider in today's world."

Resource Links

"[Veness] has nurtured a clear, expositional style of writing...lively enough to keep readers' attention...Bright photos and a lively layout enhance the package. This account of the secret lives of groceries comes with a special grace note: 'Did you know that digging your hands into a garden bed has been scientifically proven to increase happiness?' Readers will want to go out and get some dirt under their fingernails."

Kirkus Reviews