MISS BETTI, WHAT IS THIS?

A Detroit cafeteria worker acts on her belief that kids deserve delicious, nutritious food.

Determined to replace the beige fare that the 46,000 Detroit students in her charge usually found on their lunch trays with more nourishing food—and canny enough to know that she’d have to persuade them to eat it, too—Betti Wiggins started small. Goodbye, iceberg lettuce. Hello, romaine! Out with soggy white potato french fries, in with baked sweet potato fries! Soon a salad bar was stocked with fresh produce….and a lunchroom protest broke out when one principal tried to limit it to upper graders. Eighty school gardens later, plus expanded breakfast and dinner programs, Wiggins was ready for a bigger challenge. Hello, Houston! Not only are the students surrounding the brown-skinned Wiggins in Uroda’s illustrations racially diverse, including one with vitiligo; their expressions also encompass a broad range of emotion, from listlessness to skepticism, dawning interest, and finally big smiles as floating images of fresh fruits and veggies give way to flashing stars and confetti. Nargi closes with a note on her still-active subject’s later achievements and a capsule history of U.S. school lunch programs that includes a provocative nod to those sponsored by the Black Panthers.

Dishes up a decidedly well-earned tribute.