FRANKIE'S FOOD TRUCK

Frankie’s food truck makes the rounds every day of the week, mixing gastronomy with geometry in this interactive guide to the shapes of things to eat.

This volume serves up a tasty variety of vocabulary, including the days of the week, basic shapes, and various foodstuffs that young readers and their caregivers are invited to identify. Frankie is an undeniably cute kitten with an oversized head and a smile to match. He parks his food truck in the same spot every day of the week; the cityscape in the background never changes. The one thing that is dramatically different from day to day is the menu, organized around daily geometric themes: “Today is Monday, when Frankie serves squares.” This is not a jab at Frankie’s patrons; it describes his fare, served on the facing page on four empty-looking plates with square-shaped, flapped panels that open to reveal several delicious, square-shaped foods: waffles, toast, ravioli, and cheese. Triangles are Tuesday’s order of the day; three triangular flaps reveal slices of pizza, pie, and watermelon. A circular flap hides a doughnut; the text inside the flap reads, “Nope! No circles till tomorrow!” Frankie himself is rendered differently in each picture, but only slightly so; finding the differences from picture to picture may add an element of fun.

Like food-truck fare, it goes down easily.