Bella's Chocolate Surprise (Bella Balistica)

Author: Adam Guillain Price: $ 3.75 (new) $ 0.84 (used) Medium: Paperback (32 pages) Publisher: Milet Publishing 2008-05-01

Editorial Description

Lessons about fair trade are at the center of this adventure that begins on Bella's birthday. Her mother has baked a chocolate cake and, delicious though it is, Bella begins to wonder where chocolate comes from. With the help of her friend the Quetzal bird, Bella harnesses the powers of her mystical pendant and flies to Ghana in West Africa, where she befriends a group of children working in the cacao fields. She soon learns that they are part of a collective that guarantees a fair income to workers and pays for the children to go to school. Delighting in her new cross-cultural friendships, Bella starts to plan how to get people from home involved in supporting fair-trade practices around the world.

Reader Reviews

A heartwarming story
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.