HOW SWEET IT IS (AND WAS)

Kids and candy naturally go together and this brief history of types of candies and chewing gum is cunningly sweetened with O’Brien’s finely crosshatched, stippled illustrations. The handwritten-style text explains the origins of sugar, chocolate, and the word “candy,” always addressing the reader in the second-person. The wryly humorous drawings mockingly construe reenactment scenes, e.g., an Indian woman collects maple syrup by standing on a stack of pancakes; kids ride bikes and velocipedes made of peppermint penny candies. A fascinating four-page time line runs from 1493, when Columbus took sugar cane seedlings to the Americas, to 1900, when Milton Hershey made a five-cent chocolate bar, to 1999, when radio lollipops were invented. Recipes for Sugar Paste, Vassar Fudge, and Belly-Guts Taffy included. An average American eats 25 pounds of candy per year—indeed, how sweet it is! (brief bibliography) (Nonfiction. 6-10)