Customer Reviews

Beans To Chocolate (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

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This book has some very good info and pictures, but suffers from the fact that it is very short and very small. It measures a mere 6"X6". I bought it to read to a class, but I doubt they could even see it! Also, it is very short. There are nine photos with 1-2 sentences each. So basically nine page turns and you're done. It's extremely basic and appropriate for very young kids (2-5)only. Here is the entire text:
Page 1: Chocolate is made from cacao beans (photo of beans)
Page 2: First the cacao beans are cooked in ovens. The beans become very hot. (photo of oven)
Page 3: Then a machine grinds the beans (photo of machine)
Page 4: The beans become a thick paste. The paste is mixed with powdered milk and sugar. (photo of glass soup bowls of sugar, powdered milk and choc. paste)
Page 5: Machines mix everything together to make chocolate. The chocolate is very soft (photo of machine)
Page 6: The chocolate cools in pipes. When the chocolate is cooled it becomes thicker. (photo of pipes with choc. coming down)
Page 7: Now the choc. can be used to make candy. The choc. is put into molds to make candy bars. (photo of molds with choc.)
Page 8: The chocolate is cooled in the molds. As the chocolate cools, it hardens (photo of candy bars in molds)
Page 9: Chocolate can be used to make many different kinds of candy (photo of Kisss and bar)

That's it. So if you're looking for more in depth, check out a different book.

This book really should be called "Beans to MILK Chocolate". It describes the process of making chocolate but states that "the paste is mixed with powdered milk and sugar".
Milk in fact, is just an optional ingredient and this book leads people to believe that chocolate has to be made with powdered milk.
I agree with the other reviewer that this book is very short, but that is what this series is like. They are short introductory books that don't overwhelm young readers (which I can appreciate).

I love photo essays like this that allow my kids to see something they may never actually see. This book was great for my first grader to read on his own. Also, it allowed us to explore text features (table of contents, index, page numbers, glossary)for the purposes of finding information. I couldn't have asked for a better book to tie in with our rainforest unit. This is the most useful easy reader we've ever purchased!