Chocolate: Riches from the Rain Forest
by: Robert Burleigh
Most books that I read and review are a result of a conscious choice based either on an email I received about the book or wanting to preview the book for use in our homeschool. This short, large format nonfiction book was a complete impulse pull off the shelf at the library. Because, hello? Chocolate?
I can pretty much guarantee that you will learn something new from this informative book that covers all aspects of chocolate. If you do not know how cacao grows in the wild and about its early processing, that alone makes this book worth reading. Also thoroughly covered is the history of how the early American civilizations used cacao, how the Europeans put their spin on it, and how its processing evolved into the products we know today.
History becomes science once you begin talking about how our modern chocolate is manufactured. Very basic explanations are given for the process of separating out the parts of the cacao itself, when other ingredients are added, and how the product is then conched and tempered to result in the creamy, rich goodness that we all know and love.
The design of the book also bears mentioning. In both the choice of colors and the patterns printed on the pages, the book has a decidedly Central American feel that melds nicely with the subject matter. There are also many images and pictures that help the reader understand the cacao plant, historical eras, and the more recent processing to result in chocolate. My one complaint is with regard to the layout. The format of the book—a larger, picture book size with lots of visuals—is confused by entire pages of just text.
That one reservation aside, this book is well worth the read by Dialect students, and siblings in their Rhetoric years, seeing this on the coffee table, will likely pick it up to read it and learn from it as well. Due to the comprehension level of the text, the abundance of text on some pages, and the ratio of text to images on others, I don’t think Grammar students, especially the younger ones, would find this book engaging.
Nonfiction (History and Science)
31 pages
Published: 2002
by Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Subject: history of chocolate
Time Period: 1200 B.C. - present
Recommended for: Dialectic students