Every so often I get a book to review that is totally up my street, and Mission:Explore Food is that book! Not only did I get excited about it, but when I showed it to the children they loved it too – and that’s especially good as it is aimed at them.

The hardback book, which is a great size for smaller hands, is written by the Geography Collective and is all about changing the way children think of food. It is set out in chapters, which include Grow, Harvest, Cook, Eat, Waste, Soil and Everything Else and sets the children 159 food related-missions. I love the fact that each activity is asking children to get more involved so they can fully interact with the book as it challenges their ideas.

How you use the book is up to you – you can either start at the beginning and work through the missions in order or, as we did, dip in and out picking whatever grabs the children’s attention as they flick through. You can also sign up to the website missionexplore.net to earn digital badges and points.

The book is set out in a really child-friendly way, using eye-catching illustrations and easy to understand language. Older children could work through activities by themselves but I think this is the ideal book to share as a family and learn about food altogether. There are spaces in the book to do drawings, annotate pictures and record findings – a bit like school science experiments, but more fun!

One of our favourites was creating a ginger beer monster, feeding it and watching the bubbles appearing. We also enjoyed foraging for various foods and mapping our taste buds. The children are now keen to do the poo diary – me, not so much but this book is all about pushing your boundaries and finding out more, so I guess they win!

Overall, we rate this book very highly and think it is a great resource for the whole family.

Disclosure: We were sent a free copy of the book to review.