We need your help to create Mission:Explore Food, the latest in the series of children's books which The Society of Authors have said "encourage children to explore the world around them, developing their curiosity, confidence and courage along the way…".

Mission:Explore Food will be a revolutionary cookbook, guide, fieldbook and atlas to what we grow in the ground, chase around fields, put in our mouths, poo out our bums and plant our seeds in. The book will include scores of both delicious and disgusting recipes, missions, games and wisdom on good ways to find, eat and dispose of food.

Written by The Geography Collective (a team of teachers, academics, artists and explorers) in partnership with City Farmers and illustrated by Tom Morgan-Jones, Mission:Explore Food will go where no other family food-related book dares!

The first Mission:Explore Book won the Hay Festival & National Trust Outdoor Book of the Year and is Pink Stinks for being forward thinking and positive on gender issues. Our next book will be even bigger and better.

Mission:Explore Food will cover sustainable, healthy, slow, self-grown, urban farmed, ethical, local and international food. Readers will be encouraged to think critically and creatively about where their food comes from, how it's transported, traded, processed, prepared, cook, eaten and disposed of.

Chapters in the 320 page full colour and illustrated hardback book include:

     1. Grow
     2. Harvest
     3. Cook
     4. Eat
     5. Waste
     6. Soil

In true Mission:Explore style readers will be challenged to complete missions which involve planting, digging, watering, finding, foraging, growing, investigating, testing, questioning, sifting, rolling, talking, throwing, climbing, harvesting, hunting, picking, sharing, learning, soiling, pooing, weeing, recycling, trading, singing, creating, cooking, stiring, boiling, grating, skimming, churning, thinking, mapping, eating, tasting, smelling, sniffing, burning, chilling, drinking, gargling, farming, playing and fooding.

We will be preparing free units of work to help teachers use the book in schools across the curriculum. The missions will also be integrated with www.missionexplore.net so that readers can collect points and earn rewards for their efforts.

If you are a charity or food related organisation and would like to support the book in a way that is not directly on offer on this page please let us know.

We plan for the book to retail at £20 a copy and to launch at the Hay Festival 2012. Please help us to make this happen and be a part of something special!

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Here are a few words from other people on Mission:Explore.

"Mission Explore by the Geography Collective and published by Can of Worms Press was ‘mischievous, quirky and fun. full of truly challenging, thought provoking and slightly bonkers activities. Nicola Davies particularly liked the ‘Mint Stint’ which asks readers to see how far they can cycle sucking the same mint, giving page space for the route maps of three attempts.’ But the judges admired the book as being a lot more than frivolous entertainment ,  liking the way it fosters an attitude of observation , enquiry and engagement with the world,, asking children to interact with their environment, interact question it and think about it – and to play with ideas, places, objects  - a playful approach that is the foundation of all creativity." Society of Authors on becoming a runner up for the Best Education Writer of the Year Award 2011.

"Mission:Explore is bold, cool, exciting, innovative, geographic, educational…and just plain fun! Every curious kid, budding geographer, and responsible parent should have a copy!" National Geographic Education

"Mission:Explore is splendid - great fun, and a lovely way to get children out into their environment and using their brains." Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood

"We love the creativity of Mission:Explore and the way it creates experiences for all children so they can share, learn and play together." Pinkstinks Approved

"Designed to be read, scribbled on, illustrated, smeared, scratched and sniffed, it may just be the most revolutionary geography-related book ever published." Geographical Magazine

"Learning to engage with the world around you is the key to effective citizenship education, Mission:Explore sits at the heart of what we believe is good citizenship education!" Ade Sofola, Citizenship Foundation

"THE KIDS' CLASSIC - Attempting to travel with a wriggly child? Buy a copy of Mission:Explore, a book of 102 spy-style tasks and assignments, such as 'How far can you travel while sucking the same mint?' and 'Make a map revealing local cat routes'. It's like bringing along a nanny with endless patience and a James Bond fixation." Sunday Times Travel Magazine

* Project Update 1 *

Download a first draft sample of 12 missions that will feature in Mission:Explore Food in the update tab. Each spread comes from a different chapter in the book.

** Project Update 2 **

If we hit our target we'll give Mission:Explore Food Taster to every school in the UK.

We've decided to make Mission:Explore Food Taster, a lite version of Mission:Explore Food that will include 150 missions, activities and recipes. If we hit our funding target we'll send a PDF copy to every school in the UK and make it freely available to download. Schools will be free to print missions activities and share the book with families. Mission:Explore Food Taster will be a book in its own right and include all of the chapters that feature in Mission:Explore Food.