Saturday, January 25, 2014

1st & 2nd February Tomato Festival

This morning I was reading the newspaper and was surprised to read that Sydney is hosting a Tomato Festival at the Botanical Gardens on the 1st and 2nd February. This got me thinking about tomatoes, a fruit that I feel is somewhat overrated in its raw state. Friends say that is because I never have really good ones straight from the garden. Recently though I did. A friend served up a salad that was just tomatoes of various colours straight from her garden with olive oil and a little basil and they were good, very good!

Next I thought about how there were tomatoes growing in the school vegetable garden and how I have never thought much about them as a display impetus in the library. What did we have about tomatoes?  I thought of the 'signature' book I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato, the very first Charlie and Lola book by Lauren Child and then had to look in the catalogue. There was not much as I discovered. Here is the sum total!



Oh No, Monster Tomato!  a picture book about a tomato-growing competition by Jim Helmore and Beware! Killer Tomatoes, a short chapter book from Jeremy Strong's Laugh Your Socks Off series continue the fun tomatoes conjure up in fiction and then there are a few non fiction books that look at how to grow tomatoes and their lifecycles. Compared to apples, pumpkins, carrots and potatoes, tomatoes are certainly under-represented in children's books!

2 comments:

  1. Tomatoes! Who would have thought of this? I did enjoy Oh No Monster Tomato when I read it last year. I also remember wonderful tomatoes from my childhood grown by a neighbour with a wonderful vegetable and flower garden. The kids used to walk to the end of the road with empty bags and money and collect delicious sun warm tomatoes to enjoy in fresh (if fairly limited) salads. I do have an Aussie Bite book which might also be about tomatoes Tomato Dynamite - I will read it next week. Charlie and Lola books are always special. Thanks for this quirky celebration.

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    1. Thanks for the suggestion. The library does have Tomato Dynamite. I forgot about it and it is very fitting for this time of year given that it is about a swimming carnival.

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