I would also like to know more about the colorizing controversy, as well as Hoban’s decision to abridge the book as an easy reader. Frances is a picky eater and pretty soon she is turning down her string beans and all sorts of other things and eating bread and jam instead.

Mother and Father are patient, wise and kind and the language of the story is beautifully crafted with gentle touches of humour. she is a very picky eater and refuses to eat anything else but bread and jam no matter what her mom offers her. Hoban's cheery illustrations, bathed in the iridescent yellows of summer sunshine, accompany a spare, direct text that tells of a child picking flowers for her mother. If you’re curious about the interview I conducted with Russell Hoban in 2010, you can read the transcript here.and the now familiar rite of childhood trope of picky eaters, and rather think about this book as a long, free verse poem.

I have celery, carrot sticks, and black olives, and a little cardboard shaker of salt for the celery. I loved reading this again - there's so many warm and fuzzy memories caught up in the examination of a book you loved as a child, seen through the eyes of the adult. Faced with no alternative Frances comes to the conclusion that although she loves bread and jam she does not want to eat it at every meal.Russell Hoban was the author of A Bargain for Frances, A Baby Sister for Frances, Best Friends for Frances, A Birthday for Frances, and Bread and Jam for Frances, all illustrated by Lillian Hoban.

It also looks at the fine balance between who we are as individuals and honoring our loves, our expressions, and our desires and our need for community, sharing in a collective experience, and finding a sense of belonging with others through trying new things that might be unfamiliar (and possibly self-betraying? Hoban describes Frances's classmate, Albert, eating his delicious, balanced, varied and interesting lunch bite by bite, as Frances wistfully looks on over her bread and jam. I'm going to guess it was probably my sister's first and handed down to me - perhaps it was a Scholastic book?I just loved reading about all the yummy things Frances got to eat from her lunchbox at school, especially at the end!

Frances decides she wants to eat only bread and jam at every meal until--to her surprise--her parents grant her wish. It’s a fun story about dealing with the inevitable pickiness of young children as Francis goes from being obsessed with toast and jam to finding a constant diet of her former favorite boring, to enjoying culinary diversity. It's a rich, lush, descriptive book that aches to be read aloud, not just in a sing-songy "I'm reading to kids" way, but in a poetic manner, like a bard or a poetry slammer. The classic funny I Can Read story about a stubborn little badger with very particular tastes in food.

Especially the section where Frances’s friend Albert unpacks his elaborate lunch at his school desk and eats every part of it with great relish. This book can help teach children the importance of variety and trying new things as even their most beloved treat can become stale and boring. Through the usage and the form of song, improvisation, and lyrical choice, the character Frances also brings up questions of our relationship to food, our reckoning with the once-alive nature of what we consume, the anthropomorphizing of food as we juggle the need to nourish our bodies with other animals and plants, the reality of being part of a great ecosystem of living things, and our uncomfortable yet convenient and privileged place as the ones who decide (or have put ourselves in the place to decide? I know, it seems silly, but think about the way Russell Hoban chose his words, placed on them page, purposefully slashing sentences in half to add to the strong, declarative tone.