I usually only think about chocolate at Easter. I rarely crave chocolate, but my mother did and it would have been her birthday today. The history of chocolate goes back to 2000 BC when the Olmecs, an ancient civilisation in Central America, first started cultivating cocoa beans.
How to celebrate? You have permission to indulge. I'm going to go looking for my son's favourite chocolate picture books The Big Block of Chocolate by Janet Slater Bottin; Looking After Chocolates by Ronda and David Armitage and Max's Chocolate Chicken by Rosemary Wells. You might see the theme - greed and selfishness. If they are in okay condition I'll gift them to my sister to read to her grandchildren.
If you want to read something newer, try these picture books:
• The Story of Chocolate by Robin Nelson
• The (Ferocious) Chocolate Wolf by Lizzie Finlay
• Love Monster and the Last Chocolate by Rachel Bright
These short chapter books:
• The Chocolate Monster by Jan Page
• Daisy and the Trouble With Chocolate by Kes Gray
• The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling
There are even biographies:
• On the Corner of Chocolate of Avenue by Tziporah Cohen tells the story of Milton Hershey and milk chocolate in America.
• How the Cookie Crumbled by Gilbert Ford
I used to read the Chocolate Touch and Chocolate Fever to my students. Both are such fun to read aloud. I also had a terrific little non fiction book long ago - the cover looked like a real chocolate bar. I wish I could find the title. And of course I adore Max's Chocolate Chicken. I'm actually eating a chocolate bar as a write this comment!
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