Did not receive/read in time due to technical error on kindle/tablet. Not having left feedback has due to error has impacted my shelves. Leaving 4 stars.

"Eat, Leo! Eat!" is a children's picture book with real pith and value to readers of all ages and points of origin. Not only does it introduce information specific to Italy and Italian cuisine (specifically, pasta) but it also introduces the twin concepts of storytelling and global identities. Anyone who has grown up in a family with its roots in Europe will recognize the ways in which Caroline Adderson depicts the act of passing on cultural awareness through storytelling at the dinner table, and the iconic figure of the wise grandmother.

There are two components which, for me as a Youth Services Librarian who reads dozens of picture books to groups of children every week, are absolutely necessary to making a successful picture book: great pictures, and a story which is broken down into digestible chunks of text per page. The ideal for children of two to three years of age is somewhere between two and four lines of text per page--any more, and the authors start running up against short toddler attention spans. This book is a success on both fronts! Josée Bisaillon's illustrations are the perfect complement, with their unique look and feel, and their echoes of Old Europe and specifically Italian styles. The text is perfectly paced and broken up, with just the right amount of text to page for a three to four year old, which is right about the age when I start introducing global citizenship as a a concept in my Story Time programming at the library.