Runaway Food Books

After my Gingerbread unit I always like to follow up with a week of other runaway food stories. Here are some of my favorites:

Set in the southwest, the tortilla runs away and gets eaten by a coyote. The animals chasing him are desert animals too.

Set in Hawaii and it includes a recipe for Musabi.

A story that makes me hungry! The cornbread runs away but is too spicy for the gator who eats him. I like that it's a different setting in a bayou in Louisiana.

I am very aware of being culturally sensitive and know that sometimes books like this are simply stereotypical. But I think this book give a good opportunity to introduce vocabulary like synagogue and rabbi. We actually eat latkes and see how they taste before we read this story.

Then the students write their own Runaway Food stories. Who is chasing them? What happens to the food in the end? Using the patterns from the stories we read, they create their own versions. Who would chase their food? Would it end up getting eaten?

Here is what this year's class came up with: