Customer Reviews

Everybody Bakes Bread (Carolrhoda Picture Books)

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

 

 

This is generally a very good book - it's about a kid who goes from house to house in her neighborhood. In each house, a different national origin is represented (Indian, Salvadoran, Italian, Lebanese, etc.) and so the kid talks to each of them, they each are making a bread unique to their culture, and it's all done in a respectful and gently humorous way.

EXCEPT for one house. At that one house, the kid is rude to her ("What d'ya want?"), they don't speak grammatically (see above), the kid's sister shakes her finger at the protagonist and "hollers" at her ("leave that alone!"), and there is "loud music playing" that makes communication initially difficult. This one house? The African-American house.

When we read this book to our African-American 4-year-old, we, frankly, wince. Why does one, and only one, culture, have negative stereotypes presented with it?

This is a great book. I read it with my 2 pre-schoolers, and they love it. I disagree that it is not a bed time story. We read it anytime during the day. We have been making the bread at home as a project. The recipes are delicious (esp the coconut bread). I would highly recommend this book as an educational and fun book for children.

I loved how the character wanders through her neighborhhod and experiences a world of cultures. She gets to taste breads from all over the world. I feel it sends the message that although we are all so very different we are all still part of the same community.

This book is a well written and well illustrated book with the theme of cultural diversity. Two children goes around the neighborhood discovering that everybody bakes some sort of bread from their own culture. This book is a great way to teach diversity, develop respect and appreciation for other cultures and introduce new foods to children. There is even a bread recipe at the end of the book for the readers to try to make.

This is a nice way to taech cultural diversity , but it just isn't the same unless you bake the recipes to go with the story. It would be great for a school class lesson where different parents bring in samples of the breads. Not a good bedtime story.