Richard Scarry's Food

It is the juiciest and most delicious of worlds

There is an abundance of food in Richard Scarry books. It is used as a way to tell the time, or to teach the reader how to count, but mostly it just shows us the joy of food. We watch as the animals either eat with a wild hunger, lashings of jam spread across their greedy faces, or eaten simply, a chestnut savoured on a plate, a piece of cheese deliberated over with a knife and fork.

Tomatoes and apples are always the deepest of reds, shiny and ripe and ready to eat

Soup is so good a police fox abandons catching a criminal - mid chase - in order to try the soup of a cat chef whose kitchen he has rudely barged into.

Every animal has more food than they know what to do with. I’m not sure any animal within a Scarry world has known true hunger. And why should they?

Mice have mounds of cheese and nuts

And cats grow plump with sausages

Drinks — always brightly coloured and never boring water — are drunk through straws and enjoyed with friends

Mother Cat always has many hungry visitors

And the little pigs mum basically wants a bit of sleep and not have to get up to feed everyone. Relatable.

My son no longer cares for Richard Scarry books but I can’t break the habit. To read one of his books is to eat with your eyes and that, I think, is my favourite kind of reading.