Bread Comes to Life: A Garden of Wheat and a Loaf to Eat [Hardcover]

George Levenson (Author), Shmuel Thaler (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2004 | Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up

How is bread made?
Where is it from?
To make bread from scratch, start in a backyard patch! Come watch a baker turn a homegrown crop of wheat into a homemade loaf to eat. This book tells the story, in all its glory, of the sowing, growing, reaping, threshing, milling, mixing, kneading, shaping, rising, baking, and breaking of whole grain bread. It’s a soil-tilling, dough-stretching, belly-filling, spirit-catching celebration of the staff of life. You’ll never look at a slice of bread the same way again.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

PreSchool-Grade 1–This is a companion to a video of the same title. The minimal text covers a lot of ground, taking readers from the planting of wheat seeds in a garden through harvest and bread making. The cadence of the rhymed narrative flows naturally for the most part, making it appropriate for reading aloud. The photographs are large, sharp, colorful, and abundant and show children enjoying all sorts of bread. Throughout, the baker wears fuzzy white gloves as he plants seeds and tosses, kneads, and punches the dough. Why he does so is never explained in the book, although the answer to the mystery can be found at the Web site mentioned at the end. Further information about wheat and bread is appended. With adult help, children can follow the easy recipe and bake their own bread. This book will be most beneficial when used in conjunction with the video and the Web site, but it stands alone and would make a great companion to "The Little Red Hen."–Anne Chapman Callaghan, Racine Public Library, WI
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

PreS-Gr. 1. Simple, rhyming text and beautiful, close-up color photographs celebrate "the most ancient food that is still part of the modern diet." Opening photo spreads show multicultural kids clowning around with breads in a multitude of shapes and sizes. Later pages follow a baker step-by-step as he makes a gleaming loaf of whole wheat, beginning with the wheat seeds he plants, harvests, and grinds. The rhyming lines include quite a bit of information, despite their brief length, and they take on the rhythm of a chant ("White bread. Black bread. Small bread. Tall bread."), which, along with the outstanding color photos, make this an excellent choice for reading aloud. A final spread offers more detailed information about wheat, gluten, and bread, including a recipe Levenson claims that "any four-year-old, with an adult helper, can make." Teachers will want this for classroom units about the origins of food; also suggest Ann Morris' Bread, Bread, Bread (1989) for another picture-book view of how bread is enjoyed around the world. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Tricycle Press (September 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582461147
• ISBN-13: 978-1582461144
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 8.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,304,583 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ah, *this* is where bread comes from!, October 8, 2007

By 

letterm "letterm" (Virginia) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Bread Comes to Life: A Garden of Wheat and a Loaf to Eat (Hardcover)

A beautiful, deceptively simple, whimsical and instructive book on the growing of wheat and the making of bread. One senses the author's love for his subject, and the photography is breathtaking. One page shows (and tells) how a grain of hard red winter wheat does indeed look like a tiny loaf of bread... this is memorable and magical for children. What I like most is the immediacy and practicality of the text: the baker sows the wheat in his backyard garden, and we're told one acre of grain can keep a family of four in (weekly) bread for ten years. Looks like we're planting some wheat this fall...

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rutgers University Project on Economics and Children, August 14, 2008

By 

Yana V. Rodgers "econkids.rutgers.edu" (New Brunswick, NJ) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bread Comes to Life: A Garden of Wheat and a Loaf to Eat (Hardcover)

One of the first economics ideas to which children are exposed when they enter elementary school is that natural resources are products of nature that can be used to make goods and services. Bread Comes to Life is an ideal book for teaching such a lesson about natural resources. Stunning close-up photographs show how wheat seeds turn into shoots of bright green grass, which then grow into blades of wheat. Each head of wheat, when it is harvested, contains numerous wheat grains that need to be separated from the chaff and ground into flour. Instructions for using the wheat to bake a delicious loaf of bread follow this clear narrative about where that wheat comes from. Discussing this exceptional book in the context of natural resources can help children to realize that economic forces are working all around them, even in the bread they eat.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Contains a wealth of information, October 9, 2008

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bread Comes to Life: A Garden of Wheat and a Loaf to Eat (Hardcover)

Bread Comes to Life is a fascinating look at how a loaf of bread is made. Yes, bread. And it's made from scratch. It's a fascinating process.

The reader views the stunning photographs of different kinds of bread and the progression of sowing wheat, watch sprouts shoot from the rich earth, and then the wheat grows tall and strong. When the wheat is ripe, it is gathered and rubbed in a threshing box. The seeds are then ground into flour and the baker is ready to make bread!

The photographs in Bread Comes to Life are bright and represent each step in the process of bread making. Check out the last two pages and you will be given a wealth of information about wheat.

Bread Comes to Life is a must have for every home and school library. The telling of the story of bread making brings to life the very thing we eat daily and take for granted. I love this book and would love to see more in the vein of how things are made.

Armchair Interviews says: Buy one for your child and one for the school library.