Sustainable Food For A Hungry Planet
by Kimberley Veness
Orca Book Publishers, 2017
ISBN 978-1-4598-0939-0 (hc)
$19.95, 48 pp, ages 8 – 12
orcabook.com
Western Canadian first-time author Kimberley Veness has assembled an interesting resource for middle readers dealing with sustainable agriculture. Having grown up on a prairie acreage, and now a mother of two, Veness has a farm background and a concern for the future of our planet. Let’s Eat is a beautifully illustrated investigation into the “secret lives” of our groceries. She looks at the impact of monoculture on the environment, delves into the origins of aquaculture, examines the real price we pay to raise meat in feedlots, and looks at various alternatives to industrial farming including permaculture, organic foods, and urban farming. The last chapter explores some of the most recent developments (from transgenic organisms built in laboratories to meat alternatives raised in petri dishes) that may greatly affect what kind of food will be on our tables in the near future. Typical of this Orca series, Let’s Eat is attractively laid out, with dozens of colour photographs, sidebars every few pages (centred around “farming facts” and “from farm to table” information), a list of resources including books and websites, as well as a glossary and index.
Classroom Connections: There is an Orca Footprints Teacher Guide available for purchase online, that deals with the fourteen books in this series, and which is designed to help teachers create inquiry-based unit plans. But Veness has already assisted in this regard. Every few pages there are “chew on this” blurbs that encourage students to engage in a variety of hands-on activities. They include contacting local farms to learn more about what foods are produced in the area, or keeping a record of their daily diets to track where their meals originate.
Review by George Sheppard.
This review appears in Canadian Teacher Magazine’s Fall 2020 issue.