Everyone loves chocolate, right? But how many people actually know where
chocolate comes from? How it's made? Or that monkeys do their part to
help this delicious sweet exist?
This delectable dessert comes from cocoa beans, which grow on cocoa
trees in tropical rain forests. But those trees couldn't survive without
the help of a menagerie of rain forest critters: a pollen-sucking midge,
an aphid-munching anole lizard, brain-eating coffin fly maggots--they
all pitch in to help the cocoa tree survive. A secondary layer of text
delves deeper into statements such as Cocoa flowers can't bloom without
cocoa leaves . . . and maggots, explaining the interdependence of the
plants and animals in the tropical rain forests. Two wise-cracking
bookworms appear on every page, adding humor and further commentary,
making this book accessible to readers of different ages and reading
levels.
Back matter includes information about cocoa farming and rain forest
preservation, as well as an author's note.