Bella's Chocolate Surprise.

Bella's Chocolate Surprise

Adam Guillain & Elke Steiner

Milet Publishing, LLC

333 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 530, Chicago, IL 60601

9781840595055, $8.94 www.milet.com

Bella's Chocolate Surprise is not an ordinary softcover picturebook--it's an introduction to how chocolate is made, as well as the concept of "fair trade" and why it is so important. A young girl named Bella loves chocolate; curious to learn more about it, she uses a magical pendant to call her friend, a beautiful and magical Quetzal bird. The Quetzal bird takes her to visit the Ghana countryside in West Africa, where she helps the local children harvest chocolate--collecting fruit, opening its pods, scooping out the pulp, gathering the cocoa beans, leaving them covered with banana leaves for a week, finally drying them in the sun and packing them in sacks. A child tells her, "The money our community gets from the Fair Trade Company for the cocoa beans pays for all our food, school fees and medical supplies for a whole year." Most shocking of all, she learns the people who harvest cocoa beans don't eat chocolate--it's too expensive! A heartwarming story about learning to appreciate the simple joy of a sweet taste all too easily taken for granted, as well as the power that fair trade has to make everyone's lives better.