• Age: 9 to 13
• Grade: 4 to 7

Often, food is something that kids take for granted. For many, it simply shows up for them every day — thanks to their parents. But there is so much to know and understand about food. Why do we need to eat? Where does our food come from? Is there enough food for everyone? Award-winning author Jan Thornhill answers all these questions and more in Who Wants Pizza? Using one of the most common foods that kids eat — pizza — as a jumping off point, and, using a bold, graphic approach, Thornhill take an extraordinary and comprehensive look at some of the following topics: Why we eat and why we eat what we eat, how we moved from eating the raw flesh of animals to becoming sophisticated consumers of food, how food is produced for an ever-growing population, and more. It may seem like a lot to swallow, but the text is delivered in bite-sized bursts and complemented by tons of interesting facts, photos, and illustrations to ensure kids are captivated by the information. Plus, no book about food would be complete without touching on things like burbling stomachs and human waste — the gross stuff that kids love to learn about. Comprehensive, eye-opening, engaging, and fun, Who Wants Pizza? will be a book that kids will want to digest again and again — figuratively, of course.

Jan Thornhill is an author, illustrator and designer who brings her fascination with the natural world to her books for children. They include I Found a Dead Bird (National Parenting Publications Gold Award, Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction, Children’s Literature Roundtables of Canada Information Book Award); The Wildlife 123 (UNICEF-Ezra Jack Keats International Award for Excellence in Children’s Book Illustration, Governor General’s Award finalist); and The Wildlife ABC (Governor General’s Award finalist). Jan recently won the Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People. She spends her spare time in the woods obsessively collecting and cataloguing wild mushrooms and slime molds.

Jan Thornhill's profile page

• Short-listed, Ontario Library Association, Silver Birch Award for Non-fiction
• Short-listed, Alberta Children's Choice Awards, Rocky Mountain Book Award
• Commended, Canadian Children's Book Centre, Best Books for Kids and Teens Selection

Covering many topics, [Who Wants Pizza?] could serve as an outline for a teaching unit about food, a jumping-off point for individual or group research, or just as interesting reading for kids who want to know more about what they put in their mouths.

Canadian Teacher

No doubt even adult readers will learn something from this engaging book.

ForeWord Reviews

To truly understand the significance of what we eat, take a look at this book…Vivid colors, bold images and eye-popping photography engage readers and raise interesting questions that the text then helps answer. Readers will leave the book hungry for more of this topic. Nutrition for the mind, a treat for the intellect.

YABooksCentral.com

Parents who want their children to grow up mindful of their eating habits might find this a perfectly pitched book to start their kids thinking.

Shelf Candy

...a great way to provide your kids with some educational 'health food.'

Kids' Book Critic Blog

...encourages students to take responsibility for the choices they make about what they eat and teaches them to be smart consumers.

Professionally Speaking

Jan Thornhill has another hit with Who Wants Pizza?, a bright and appealing book...[that] will get kids thinking about the food they eat and where it comes from.

Resource Links

No child - nor uninformed adult, for that matter - should be able to read Who Wants Pizza? without rethinking their relationship with food.

Quill & Quire, starred review

Who Wants Pizza? The Kids’ Guide to the History, Science and Culture of Food

Covering topics ranging from digestion to etiquette in different cultures, from animal domestication to food preservation and the variety of foods eaten around the world, this book gives readers a great idea about how important food really is. Filled with fascinating facts and trivia, young readers will gobble up the information contained in this book.