Sweet food of youth Candy is dandy topic for children’s book by East Blue Hill author Ruth Freeman Swain

Many children’s books get described as sweet.

But a new volume written by an East Blue Hill author truly qualifies for that label.

“How Sweet It Is (and Was),” written by Ruth Freeman Swain and illustrated by John O’Brien, is a history of candy that will appeal to anyone with a sweet tooth.

The 32-page book (Holiday House, $16.95) continues the author’s fascination with the mundane. Her previous works were “Bedtime!” about how people sleep; and the self-explanatory “Hairdo!: What We Do and Did to Our Hair.”

“We always learned about famous people, but I wanted to know how ordinary people lived their lives,” Swain explained. “The more we see those things, we realize, even though we can live differently, how much we have in common.”

Candy was a natural topic for Swain, who taught nursery school for 10 years in Pennsylvania, before moving to Maine three years ago.

“Candy was so much fun, something special, whether it was Halloween or a big birthday cake with M&Ms or Valentine’s Day candy,” she said. “I just knew candy would have a good history to it, and knew children would love to read about that.”

The book took Swain about a year to prepare, although 10 to 11 months of that time were spent doing research.

“To find those interesting little nuggets of information, you really have to go hunting,” she said. “It’s like a treasure hunt. You never know where you’re going to find a great little piece of information. It’s reading lots of books, and one leads to another.”

“How Sweet It Is” is packed full of such tidbits. For example, while researching at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., she discovered that at royal English banquets in the 16th and 17th centuries, huge sculptures would be made from sugar paste. In one case, a ship built of sugar, with flags and streamers flying, fired gunpowder out of hollow plant stems at a gilded sugar castle. Also, the dishes were made from sugar, and the guests could eat them for dessert.

Swain also discovered that a Mexican general was indirectly responsible for the discovery of chewing gum. When General Santa Anna was exiled in 1860, he brought 250 kilograms of chicle (the sap from the sapodilla tree) with him to New York City, hoping to sell it as a rubber substitute. When the general returned to Mexico, he left the chicle with his friend Thomas Adams, who figured out how to turn it into chewing gum, first gumballs in 1871 and then flat sticks in 1875.

Swain’s husband, Ted, and sons Ned and Bob helped out with the research as well.

“My husband remembers every single candy he ate as a child,” she said. “The kids would bring me all the wrappers from their candy. They ate a lot of candy for me.”

Illustrating the book was O’Brien, with whom Swain hadn’t collaborated previously. O’Brien, who splits his home between New Jersey and Florida, is an illustrator, musician and lifeguard. In addition to his work in children’s books, his cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker.

Swain was so pleased with O’Brien’s work that she plans to work with him again on her next picture book.

“When I saw the pictures, they just glowed,” she said. “I couldn’t get over how wonderful they were.”

The book includes a candy timeline and recipes for Sugar Paste, Vassar Fudge and “Belly-guts” Taffy.

Swain got into writing children’s books quite by accident. She was working on a novel that was going nowhere when she began the nonfiction work that would become “Bedtime!” One editor suggested she cut it to a 32-page picture book.

All of her published works have been picture books, and writing one can be an exercise in self-editing for a writer, Swain explained.

“I have 32 pages in the back of my mind, but I have to be careful there’s not too much text,” she said. “Pictures tell so much. You have to tell just enough story, then leave room for the pictures. You have to cut out everything that’s not absolutely necessary.”

Swain writes every morning, while her son Bob is in school (Ned is in college).

She has completed her next picture book, and she’s waiting for O’Brien to become available to illustrate it. She can’t tell the topic, but hints that “it’s something we wear every day and don’t think twice about.” She hopes it will be out in a couple of years.

Swain is also writing a novel for middle-grade (ages 8 to 12) readers.

She realizes that her success in picture books is no guarantee that she’ll find a market for her fiction.

“It gives you a little toe in the door,” she said. “Editors will give you the benefit of the doubt and will read what you send them.”

Swain gets picture-book topics from her editor and from children at schools she visits, but she has plenty of ideas of her own.

“It’s sometimes good to keep them in my head, and see what surfaces in time,” she said. “It’s kind of a ripening process.”