A Fine Dessert: Four Centuries, Four Families, One Delicious Desert

Written by: Emily Jenkins and Sophie Blackall

First line: A bit more than three hundred years ago, in an English town called Lyme, a girl and her mother picked wild blackberries.

Why you should read this book: Blackberry fool is a simple, and apparently ancient dessert, and this book uses it as a platform to discuss changes in society and technology along with the constancy of family and sugar. Showing four different parent-child combinations in four different centuries, the book also demonstrates social evolution, depicting black slaves cooking for white plantation owners in the nineteenth century and boys cooking for a diverse group of friends in the twenty-first century. Of course, the book also includes a recipe for making your own blackberry fool, with a grown-up's help.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Some of us are fine spraying Reddi Whip on our fruit.