Offering quite a tasty ode to the perfect snack, Ryan raises queries in a little rhymed ditty and then answers in prose. Readers learn, for instance, that 90 percent of raisins sold in the US come from around Fresno, California, and that 95 percent of that crop is the Thompson Seedless grape, named for the man who introduced the Lady de Coverly green seedless grape to California. Facts include how raisens are grown, cut, dried, and processed, some history (the ancient Phoenicians produced muscat raisins from muscat grapes; tiny seedless grapes grown near Corinth, Greece, called raisin de Corauntz, became currants), and even a recipe or three. Brown's marker-and-pastel pictures are boldly drawn with the same whimsical approach as the verse-drying raisins lie on beach blankets in the sun, and tiny fairy princesses stuff raisin boxes full. One can have one's chocolate or popcorn; youngsters devoted to those cute little boxes of sweet dried treats will revel in learning all about them.
-- Kirkus Reviews, June 2003

Sticky and sweet, raisins are such a universally popular snack that they come in boxes sized to fit a child's hand and have traveled to outer space with astronauts. In lighthearted, four-line rhyming queries, Ryan wonders where and how raisins grow and how they get from grape vines to grocery stores. Her questions are answered in no-nonsense text, with raisins' nutritional benefits, product development, and "a little raisin history" spelled out at the book's end. Brown's robustly colored art, with bold black lines and stippled details, energizes the text, depicting rows of grape vines stretching to the California horizon as well as the cutting, drying, and collecting processes. His whimsical pictures often play with the humorous rhymes, as when a contented raisin soaks in a tub of purple bubble bath with a yellow rubber duck. The no-bake recipes for raisin treats are a bonus to this delectable book, which, like its subject, packs a lot of value into a small package.
-- Booklist, August 2003