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Boone attended West Delaware High School and the University of Iowa before becoming a non-fiction children’s book author and moving to Tacoma, Wash. While back in her hometown to visit family for the holidays, she decided to reach out to the library and host a program based on her book “Bugs for Breakfast.”
“I write nonfiction books for kids, that’s my job,” said Boone. “This is my 60th book for kids and it’s one I had a lot of passion about. I got to go on a cultural exchange trip to Vietnam about eight years ago. I’d decided I would try new things and one of those things was eating bugs. I came back and thought, ‘Well, I’ve done that’, but then I started thinking, ‘Wait, there are people who do this all over the world. Why?’ That’s always what drives my books, I want to know more.”
Boone said she researched the book for eight years before finally selling it to a publisher, saying, “The United States just wasn’t ready for it”. When it did go out for submission a year and a half ago, it went to auction due to the sudden demand by publishers to cover the topic of alternate food sources and sustainability.
Boone said she wanted the kids at the library to have an interactive experience they could remember better than just hearing information from her book. The program contained roasted crickets for the kids to eat, including ones covered in cocoa and cinnamon, cookies baked with ground-up cricket protein powder, insect-related crafts and the opportunity to cut out dough to dog treats made with cricket power.
“I’m a huge proponent of active learning,” said Boone. “Nonfiction has this reputation of being boring, but when you can bring it to life with hands-on activities it makes messages stick. I always say if you tell a kid about eating bugs he’ll remember it for a day, but if you feed a kid a bug he’ll remember it for a lifetime. I’m imagining some of these kids will be in their twenties and talking to their parents about the time they ate bugs at the library. If that’s what it takes to get them thinking, then great.”
Boone said her goal is to expose the kids to the idea of eating bugs in the hopes that its importance will stick with them as they grow into the next generation of leaders and scientists to bring it into reality.
“It’s about what we need to do in terms of feeding our planet. The world population is going to double by 2050, or so the experts tell us, and we don’t have enough room for twice as many farms of cows and pigs to feed all those people. These kids are the ones who need to figure out how we’re going to innovate to feed people and save water. If it’s not eating bugs, perhaps they’ll come up with a way to make cows less gassy, or another protein source.”
Kids eat crickets at Bugs for Breakfast
Children went to the Manchester Public Library to eat bugs Dec. 18. The library program, titled “Bugs for Breakfast” was held in cooperation with a Manchester-born author, Mary Boone.Boone attended West Delaware High School and the University of Iowa before becoming a non-fiction children’s book author and moving to Tacoma, Wash. While back in her hometown to visit family for the holidays, she decided to reach out to the library and host a program based on her book “Bugs for Breakfast.”
“I write nonfiction books for kids, that’s my job,” said Boone. “This is my 60th book for kids and it’s one I had a lot of passion about. I got to go on a cultural exchange trip to Vietnam about eight years ago. I’d decided I would try new things and one of those things was eating bugs. I came back and thought, ‘Well, I’ve done that’, but then I started thinking, ‘Wait, there are people who do this all over the world. Why?’ That’s always what drives my books, I want to know more.”
Boone said she researched the book for eight years before finally selling it to a publisher, saying, “The United States just wasn’t ready for it”. When it did go out for submission a year and a half ago, it went to auction due to the sudden demand by publishers to cover the topic of alternate food sources and sustainability.
Boone said she wanted the kids at the library to have an interactive experience they could remember better than just hearing information from her book. The program contained roasted crickets for the kids to eat, including ones covered in cocoa and cinnamon, cookies baked with ground-up cricket protein powder, insect-related crafts and the opportunity to cut out dough to dog treats made with cricket power.
“I’m a huge proponent of active learning,” said Boone. “Nonfiction has this reputation of being boring, but when you can bring it to life with hands-on activities it makes messages stick. I always say if you tell a kid about eating bugs he’ll remember it for a day, but if you feed a kid a bug he’ll remember it for a lifetime. I’m imagining some of these kids will be in their twenties and talking to their parents about the time they ate bugs at the library. If that’s what it takes to get them thinking, then great.”
Boone said her goal is to expose the kids to the idea of eating bugs in the hopes that its importance will stick with them as they grow into the next generation of leaders and scientists to bring it into reality.
“It’s about what we need to do in terms of feeding our planet. The world population is going to double by 2050, or so the experts tell us, and we don’t have enough room for twice as many farms of cows and pigs to feed all those people. These kids are the ones who need to figure out how we’re going to innovate to feed people and save water. If it’s not eating bugs, perhaps they’ll come up with a way to make cows less gassy, or another protein source.”
