Mud Book: How To Make Pies and Cakes

PreS-Gr 2—First printed in 1983, this combination concept book and cookbook playfully encourages readers to use easily found "ingredients" (dirt, water, pebbles) and household materials, such as pie pans and cardboard, to create scrumptious mud pies and cakes with messy abandon. Two "recipes" are included, one for a mud pie and the other for a mud layer cake with a dandelion candle—topped birthday variation. The final page sagely reminds readers, "Mud pies are to make and to look at/Not to eat." Just bigger than a drink coaster, this small, square book strikes a sincere tone, deftly avoiding sentimentality or pretention. Long employs a limited palette of black ink, brown mud, and yellow paint and unassuming flat shapes to illustrate the bare-bones instructions to pound, sift, and mix dirt into deliciously messy mud pies baked under the hot yellow sun. The thick off-white paper and hand-lettered text contribute to the handmade feel. It's even possible to see the faint, ghostly outlines of first sketches done in brown pencil.