WHAT YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT FINGERS, FORKS, AND CHOPSTICKS

This tour through time of varied eating tools is both fun and fascinating. Starting with the Stone Age, which took finger food to extremes until rudimentary knives were born, Lauber (Painters of the Caves, 1998, etc.) travels through the metallic ages (copper, bronze, iron), Middle Ages, Renaissance, and modern times, laying out the evolution of knife, fork, and spoon, the introduction of chopsticks, and the refinement of eating with the fingers. She explains—always with an infusion of humor—the origins and changes in etiquette, and the design tinkerings in flatware (including Louis XIV’s stipulation that knives be made with rounded ends to cut down on the number of stabbings at the table). Manders’s madcap artwork belies a rigorous and elegant technique of underpainting, dyes and washes; he gives a comic touch to such important historical moments as when it was proper to eat peas with the knife. (bibliography) (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-11)