Bon Appetit! The Delicious Life of Julia Child

Julia Child is a wonder to us in America. She somehow managed to break every cultural norm for women of her time (she worked and lived independently for many years before marrying, she married yet never had children, and she created a fabulous career for herself as a chef and a tv personality) and still was able to captivate her audience of (mostly) middle-class American stay-at-home wives and mothers. She was odd for a tv personality (very, very tall and gawky and somewhat plain) but she also had that wonderful quality of self-consciouslessness that endeared her to her readers and her viewers of the time and endears her to her readers and her viewers even today.

This little children's picture book captures that charming essence of Julia Child. The book is a comic book, told in clever text (with fun asides to the reader) and child-like illustrations. In this little book the author/illustrator somehow shares all the disappointments and surprising successes of this woman's life in a way that is captivating to both children and adult readers.

This was the first Cybils nominee I read and it immediately wooed me and won me.