Turkish Delight & Treasure Hunts: Delightful Treats and Games from Classic Children's Books [Hardcover]

If you love children's books (Narnia, Betsy-Tacy, Pippi Longstocking, Paddington, Roald Dahl, The Secret Garden), especially old-fashioned ones, you will enjoy this book. Filled with instructions for games and recipes from children's books, it is sure to give you ideas enough to keep busy all summer (as well as inspire you to visit the library!).

Jane Brocket is British, and this book is compiled from two of her titles published in Britain, Ripping Things to Do and Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer. Although there is a definite British slant to it, it looks like this book was edited and compiled with an eye for the American market. I was happy to see this book come out, as I had a hard time getting hold of the other two in America.

I could tell you how many wonderful memories Jane Brocket's Turkish Delight & Treasure Hunts: Delightful Treats and Games from Classic Children's Books brought back for me, but I'm not going to do that. While those memories are wonderful, Jane's book isn't really a memory book. It is, instead, a resource book.

The single best way to foster a love of reading in a child is to read to them until they are old enough to read to themselves and then to continue to encourage them to read. To do that, you need to help them make their reading personal. Nothing brings a story to life for a child like acting out the story in some way, whether that is playing a game from the story, making a treat, or having a picnic.

In Turkish Delight & Treasure Hunts: Delightful Treats and Games from Classic Children's Books Jane Brocket provides recipes and instructions for a wide variety food, games & activities from a broad selection of well loved children's literature. I've used a number of Jane's recipes from Vintage Cakes: More Than 90 Heirloom Recipes for Tremendously Good Cakes and they've always been very successful. Almost every one of these looks to be in that same vein.

I do have one quibble. As you may know, I live in Vermont, where making Maple Syrup is a way of life. During the time that the sap is running and maple is in progress of being made, virtually every church around throws a Maple Supper or if you prefer you can drop into many of the hundreds of farms for Sugar on Snow, for which Jane gives directions on page 173 of Turkish Delight & Treasure Hunts: Delightful Treats and Games from Classic Children's Books. Proper Sugar on Snow is made by boiling syrup to a Soft Ball (235F) not the Hard Crack (255F) Jane recommends. Sugar on Snow is a party item, meant to provide a treat to a crowd. The candy should have a taffy-like consistency when you pull it off the snow (these days we mostly use finely crushed ice) rather than be rock hard. Boiling the syrup to Hard Crack runs the risk of having all that expensive syrup harden in the pan.

Grandma's $0.02 - Whether you teach Children's Literature or just want to enrich the reading experiences of your own children and grandchildren, Turkish Delight & Treasure Hunts: Delightful Treats and Games from Classic Children's Books is a great resource book. Highly recommended.

What a fun book! I remember reading many of the books mentioned as a child & how my imagination took off with those stories. This is a wonderful addition to a child's library (or a child-at-heart's library!)