Nicole Wong

How many people actually know where chocolate comes from? How it’s made? Or that monkeys do their part to help this delicious sweet exist? Kids will learn that chocolate comes from cocoa beans, which grow on cocoa trees in tropical rain forests. But those trees couldn’t survive without the help of a menagerie of rain forest critters: a pollen-sucking midge, an aphid-munching anole lizard, brain-eating coffin fly maggots — they all pitch in to help the cocoa tree survive. Two wise-cracking bookworms appear on every page, adding humor and further commentary, making this book accessible to readers of different ages and reading levels.

Most kids like something chocolate-y, right? But there wouldn’t be chocolate without cocoa beans that come from cocoa pods that rely on insects and other creatures in rainforests — even monkeys! A brief but engaging look at this interconnected habitat is realistically illustrated with informative but humorous asides by bookworms to encourage each page turn.

Kathy Sullivan followed her dreams regardless of what other girls did. She learned to pilot a plane as a teenager and as an adult, an astronaut and the first woman to walk in space. Her early experiences are juxtaposed to her work as an astronaut on alternating spreads seen in attractive illustrations and a crisp text. A note from Sullivan (coauthor of the book) as well as brief sketches of other women astronauts concludes this fascinating book.