Bread and Jam for Frances

Bread and Jam for Frances
Written by Russell Hoban
Illustrated by Lillian Hoban
Ages 4-8

If you are trying to convince someone to try new foods then this is the perfect book for you! Frances is a young child badger who refuses to eat anything except bread and jam. She refuses the poached eggs she is given for breakfast and the veal cutlets she is served for dinner. And when her Mom packs her an egg salad sandwich for lunch, she trades another kid for his bread and jam. Her parents try to explain to Frances that trying new foods is a good thing, but Frances won't hear of it.
Finally, her parents stop offering her their food and serve her only bread and jam. She has it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, day after day. At first she feels lucky to have all the bread and jam she could want. After a while, though, her love for bread and jam starts to fade and she starts to wish she was being given other options. The lunch that Albert brings to school one day makes Frances jealous because he has a few tasty options (a sandwich, an egg, pickles, grapes, a tangerine and milk) but Frances only has bread and jam. Finally she sings, "What I am, is tired of jam".
Frances' parents exchange the bread and jam for many other tasty foods that Frances loves.

Sidenote: As the book was originally written in the 60s, some of the foods may be outdated or unfamiliar to the children (i.e. lobster salad sandwich, veal cutlets, poached eggs).

Questions to discuss with your reader:

1. Why did Frances stop eating bread and jam when she loves it so much?
2. What food would you want to eat all the time?
   
3. What foods do you hate eating?
   
4. If you were Frances' parents, would you let her eat bread and jam all the time? Why/why not?

Programming ideas:
CRAFT IDEA - Print off copies of a plate setting with an empty plate (see http://www.cutco.com/images/promotion/thanksgiving/ps.jpg) on both sides of the page. On one side, have the children draw foods that they love and on the other side, have them draw foods they dislike.

GAME IDEA - Shopping for food.
Give every player a $20 Monopoly bill. Hand them a list of foods (with pictures) that they have to buy in order to make spaghetti and meatballs with a salad. Print out grocery items on a paper, cut them out and scatter them around the programming room (for examples, see the list at the bottom). Write different prices on the same print-out so that they have to choose which type of spaghetti they will buy. Give them 10 minutes (in the first round) to run around and find the foods on the shopping list. Encourage the parents to help them with the adding of the cost of the foods (because they only have $20). Give them a few rounds to play. The winner of the game will get all the ingredients without spending more than $20.
For game printouts, see:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2332/2443293913_7f86787f8e.jpg?v=0
http://z.about.com/d/kidscooking/1/0/w/V/-/-/sweet-sour-meatballs-big.jpg
http://www.edenfoods.com/store/images/products/zoom/104030.jpg
http://ayeshahaq.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/lettuce3.jpg
http://www.valleygroves.com/images/Tomatoes.jpg
http://ayeshahaq.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/cucumber0511.jpg