Yum! Mmmm! Que Rico!: Americas' Sproutings by Pat Mora

Mora, Pat. Illustrated by Rafael Lopez. Yum! Mmmm! Que Rico!: America’s Sproutings. New York: Lee & Low Books Inc., 2007.

ISBN: 9781584302711

“Yum! Mmmm! Que Rico!: Americas' Sproutings” is a fun and colorful collection of haikus about various fruits, vegetables, and beans.  The chosen foods are popular American staples that have originated from Mexico and South America.  Mora expertly weaves in Spanish words and heritage into the fact blocks which accompany each haiku.  These fact blocks are a paragraph of information about the respective fruit, vegetable, or bean.  The information includes various facts such as where the food is mostly grown, where it comes from, what it looks like, what it’s used for, and how it’s typically eaten.

Fact Block:

Papayas also known as tree melons, are believed to have originates in southern Mexico and Central America.  Now they are grown throughout the tropical and subtropical areas of the world.  Papayas are hollow, with small, wrinkled black seeds in the center.  Papain, found in the milky fluid of unripe papayas, is used in several products, including meat tenderizers and some medicines.  When ripe, the fruit is juicy and sweet.  Shaped somewhat like a pear, a papaya can weigh as much as twenty pounds.

Poem:

Papaya

Chewing your perfume,

We taste your leafy jungle.

Yum! Juicy tropics.

Before introducing this book to a class or group I would make sure that there is an understanding of the haiku form of poetry.  The group would need to already have a firm understanding of syllables in place.  Haikus are 17 syllable poems.  They are short and don’t generally rhyme.  As an activity, I’d break the class into small groups of 3 or 4 students.  As a class we would pick a natural food which is not already covered in the book.  I’d ask each group to think of a couple facts about the food the class has picked.  As a class, we would composite together the small group facts to create our own fact block about the chosen food.  Next, each small group would set out to write their own haiku about the food.  Each group should share their poem!