Armchair Travel Archives - NY Foodie Family

Visit Philadelphia Through Children’s Books! {Family Armchair Travel}

Posted on July 27, 2017 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Philadelphia, nicknamed the “City of Brotherly Love” is the largest city in Pennsylvania. This city should be on every family’s must-visit list! Filled with historical sites as well as many museums and lots of great food, there is something for everyone in Philadelphia! Whether you read some of these books before a trip or just armchair travel, visit Philadelphia through children’s books!

Picture Books:

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Journey Around Philadelphia from A to Z by Martha Day Zschock
Published: 2006, Commonwealth Editions
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Source: borrowed from the library

Learn all about the city of Philadelphia in this A to Z book. This book is targeted towards older elementary students and is chock full of information and facts. Each letter page includes a short, alliterative sentence and three different illustrations. This was our first time reading one of Zschock’s Journey books. However, she has several other books in the Journey series including New York, Cape Cod and Washington D.C.

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Larry Gets Lots in Philadelphia by Michael Mullin and John Skewes
Illustrated by: John Skewes
Published: 2013, Sasquatch Books
Price: $16.99
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Source: borrowed from the library

Pete and his family take a trip to Philadelphia and bring along their dog, Larry. Larry gets separated from Pete and the book follows the two as they go searching for each other. On their search they visit many of Philadelphia’s famous landmarks, including the Liberty Bell, Independence Square, the Besty Ross House, Pat and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The book is told in rhyme, but provides a small informational description for each landmark. This book is a nice introduction to Philadelphia for young readers.

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Mrs. Millie Goes to Philly! by Judy Cox
Published: 2008 by Two Lions
Price: $9.99 (paperback)
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Source: borrowed from the library

Mrs. Millie is a very silly teacher! She takes her kindergarten class to Philadelphia and uses animal words in place of other words, which her students have to decipher. They wear name badgers (badges), ride the platypus (bus) and see the Liberty Bull (bell). Each page is accompanied by a humorous illustration illustrating the silly sentence. Readers will have fun trying to figure out Mrs. Millie’s “mistakes” and they will also learn about some of the sights of Philadelphia including the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and the Betsy Ross House.

Chapter Books:

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Philadelphia! (Recipe for Adventure #8) by Giada De Laurentiis
Published: 2016 by Grosset & Dunlap (imprint of Penguin Random House)
Price: $16.99 (hardcover)
Pages: 160
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Source: borrowed from the library

This is the eighth book in the Recipe for Adventure series. The series is targeted towards readers ages 7-9 (2nd-4th grade). In the series, siblings Emilia and Alfie are transported to different cities around the world. They get to taste all kinds of new foods as they help someone in the city solve a problem. In Philadelphia! the whole Bertolizzi family is transported to the city. They sample all kinds of Philadelphia food staples like cheesesteaks, pretzels, Italian hoagies and more and visit historic sites like the Betsy Ross House, the Liberty Bell, the Italian Market, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and more. They also work together to try to help their tour guide Emma and her family save their hotel. Two recipe cards are included in each book of this series. This book’s recipes are for Zia’s Steak Sandwiches and Emma’s Italian Pizzelles. While we didn’t make these recipes, knowing that they are from Giada, I’m sure they are delicious!

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The Philly Fake (Ballpark Mysteries #9) by David A. Kelly
Published: 2014 by Random House Books for Young Readers
Price: $4.99 (paperback)
Pages: 112
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Source: borrowed from the library

This is the ninth book in the Ballpark mysteries series, a baseball-themed mystery series targeted towards readers on a 2.6 reading level (approximately 1st through 4th grade, depending on reading ability). In this book Mike and Kate are spending the Fourth of July in Philadelphia. Kate’s mom is a sportswriter and her friend had gotten them tickets to the three game Phillies v. Mets series. During the first game the players’ bats keep breaking and the team loses. The team mascot the Phillie Phanatic is blamed and could possibly lose his job. Mike and Kate try to help find out who’s really at fault and save the Phanatic’s job. The end of the book includes some fun and interesting notes about the Phillie’s ballpark. This book was interesting and gave the reader information about some of the other famous sites in Philadelphia, not just the stadium. This was the first book in the Ballpark Mysteries series that we read but won’t be the last. We are interested in reading #2, The Pinstripe Ghost since we are familiar with and have been to Yankee Stadium!

Books set in Philadelphia that don’t really tell much about the city:

Chapter Books:

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Independence Hall (I, Q #1) by Roland Smith
Published: 2008 by Sleeping Bear
Price: $8.95
Pages: 312
Rating: 3 out 5 stars
Source: borrowed from the library

This is the first book in the I,Q series. Quest, (Q for short) and his new stepsister Angela are traveling around the country in a luxury motor coach, while their newly married musician parents go on tour. The book is told over a series of 6 days as the family travels to Philadelphia for the first stop. While there, they discover that they are in a real-life spy adventure. This spy/adventure series is aimed toward middle grade readers.

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When Freedom Comes (Hope’s Revolutionary War Diary #3) by Kristiana Gregory
Published: 2004 by Scholastic
Price: $12.95
Pages: 112
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Source: borrowed from the library

This is book number 3 in the Revolutionary War Diary series. Told in diary format, the book details Hope’s experience with the Revolutionary War in full swing. British soldiers are living in her house, she is cut off from her best friend, whose family are Loyalists and her family learns that her father is weak and sick in Valley Forge, fighting in the war. Hope’s family lives in Philadelphia, however not much reference is made to the actual city.

Family Armchair Travel: Israel

Posted on May 28, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

As mentioned yesterday, our subscription to International snack box Universal Yums! sparked the idea of our family to armchair travel to the featured country each month. May’s snack box featured country was Israel, so off we went!

Prior to receiving the box, I knew that the featured country was Israel. I printed up a blank flag of Israel found at Coloring Castle and using an online picture I had my son color the flag (see picture above). We have a children’s atlas and the kids found Israel.

We watched volume 1 of Shalom Sesame: Welcome to Israel. This is a 12-DVD series that includes episodes on Passover, Purim, Shabbat and more. My children are almost seven and nine years old. I figured that this DVD was going to be too babyish for them. Although Sesame Street characters like Grover and some new characters from Israel are featured, this DVD was surprisingly informative and engaging for even my older children. Viewers accompany Anneliese as she goes to Israel to visit a relative. You get to see the sights and food of Israel and meet children from the country. Hebrew words and numbers are also introduced. There’s a special appearance by actress Christina Applegate who teaches viewers the different meanings of “Shalom.” (We borrowed this DVD from the library.)

We read the following books:
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Count Your Way Through Israel by Jim Haskins
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

This book was published in 1990 and has a dated look and feel to it. There’s an informative introductory note that gives a little background information on Israel and the alphabet and pronunciation of some of the letters. The book counts from 1 through 10 showing the Hebrew word and pronunciation for each number. It also connects each number to information about the country. While the Four Questions is appropriate for number 4, for the number 5 Haskins writes about five agricultural products that Israel is known for. The book also shows illustrations, whereas I think photographs would be much more engaging. This book had difficulty holding the interest of my six year-old son. (We borrowed this book from the library.)

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Exploring Countries: Israel by Joy Gregory
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This book is part of the Exploring Countries series AV2 Media Enhanced Books collection. There’s a special code in the beginning of the book that when input into the AV2 website makes a variety of additional resources available to the reader. This is one of the most recently published children’s books about Israel. It includes information about the land and climate, plants and animals, goods and services and much more. The supplemental online media includes videos, quizzes and activities. Each set of pages includes a “By The Numbers” feature, with factual information relating to the particular topic. For example, under Politics and Government, the “By The Numbers” feature notes that Israeli citizens can vote at the age of 18 and that there are 15 judges on Israel’s Supreme Court. The book is colorful and includes lots of photographs. The text on each page is semi-lengthy and the book is geared towards older elementary students. (We borrowed this book from the library.)

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The Remarkable Journey of Josh’s Kippah by Barbara Elissa
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

In this picture book, we follow a kippah from Joshua Jacob’s Bar Mitzvah as it travels around the world. From Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur the kippah travels from New York to places like Israel, Argentina and Miami before making its way back to New York. Unfortunately, we were not big fans of this book. There were lots of words that many readers may be unfamiliar with. While there’s a glossary in the back of the book, the number of words that are unfamiliar, and not defined in the story, disrupt the flow of the book. While many Jewish holidays and special days are identified in the story, there’s little to no description as to what the day is about. This was not a favorite book of ours. (We borrowed this book from the library.)

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Welcome to Israel by Elma Schemenauer
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

This book is part of the Welcome to the World! series from They Child’s World. This book is a little older, but still very informative. Again, the amount of info and detail in this book makes it geared toward middle to upper elementary students. It covers information about the land of Israel as well as its people, food, holidays, school and work. At the back of the book there’s a list of famous people from Israel as well as a glossary and pronunciation guide for some basic Hebrew words. This book was informative but did not keep my six year-old son’s interest. (We borrowed this book from the library.)

To finish up our Armchair Travel we ate some Israel-themed dinners.

The Weekend Chef’s family is part Jewish, so we celebrate Passover and Hanukkah with them. Our kids are familiar with latkes, gefilte fish, matzo ball soup, matzo and haroset. I wanted to make some dishes that were new to us.

I made Fresh Mozzarella, Mushroom and Eggplant Shakshuka from blog May I Have That Recipe? Although, my shakshuka didn’t come out quite as pretty as theirs! I served this with some Italian bread which we used to scoop up the sauce and veggies. I was pleasantly surprised that both kids ate this, eggplant, mushrooms and all.

I made a whole roast chicken in the slow cooker and made Noodle Kugel from the Food Network to go with it. The kids loved this sweet noodle dish!

The last dish I made was Baked Falafel, adapted from allrecipes.com with a Tomato and Cucumber Salad. This wasn’t a new dish for us, but I hadn’t made it in a long time. I love falafel but the kids aren’t the biggest fans. They ate theirs mixed with the tomato and cucumber salad inside their pita. I wanted to have them try it again before we had the falafel-flavored snacks in the Universal Yums! snack box.

We are looking forward to see where we will be traveling next month! Stay tuned so you can travel along with us!