Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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...

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.

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.