How Do You Raise a Raisin by Craig Brown

Ryan, Pam Muñoz. (2003) How Do You Raise a Raisin. Illustrated by Craig Brown. Charlesbridge.

REVIEWS

"The book includes raisin history, agriculture, trivia, and even a few recipes. Brown's heavily stippled, marker-and-pastel illustrations are fanciful and sprightly." -- School Library Journal .

"Brown's robustly colored art, with bold black lines and stippled details, energizes the text, depicting rows of grapevines stretching to the California horizon as well as the cutting, drying, and collecting processes. His whimsical pictures often play with the humorous rhymes, as when a contented raisin soaks in a tub of purple bubble bath with a yellow rubber duck. The no-bake recipes for raisin treats are a bonus to this delectable book, which, like its subject, packs a lot of value into a small package." -- Booklist

"Simple but bold artwork depicts scenes of the backbreaking manual labor of harvesting along with fanciful raisin portraits-like raisins drying on beach blankets in the sun." -- Children's Literature.

"Brown's marker-and-pastel pictures are boldly drawn with the same whimsical approach as the verse-drying raisins lie on beach blankets in the sun, and tiny fairy princesses stuff raisin boxes full. One can have one's chocolate or popcorn; youngsters devoted to those cute little boxes of sweet dried treats will revel in learning all about them." -- Kirkus Reviews.