Chil­dren’s

Food, Where Does It Come From?: Bread

Menucha Fuchs
  • Review
By – May 29, 2013
In her book Bread, Menucha Fuchs explains where bread comes from; its ori­gin as a seed of grain to its cul­mi­na­tion in a tasty car­bo­hy­drate. Her book dis­cuss­es farm­ing, the need for just the right amount of rain and the farmer’s prayers to G‑d for a good har­vest. 

It explains how those seeds turn into stalks of wheat and how those stalks are har­vest­ed and milled. Fuchs out­lines the equip­ment and machin­ery used to grind wheat into flour, and tells how it was done in years gone by, before such machin­ery exist­ed. The book is full of answers for curi­ous chil­dren, address­ing the ways in which bread is made from flour and what oth­er ingre­di­ents are required to com­plete the process. 

Each page of text has a fac­ing page of images cor­re­spond­ing graph­i­cal­ly to the infor­ma­tion being read. Each page is enclosed in a plas­tic sleeve, as if laminated. 

Fuchs is a well-known, reli­gious Israeli writer with more than thir­ty books to her name, sev­er­al of them explain­ing how every­day sta­ples in the home are made, and where they come from. A use­ful acqui­si­tion to a Jew­ish day school library, it’s easy to imag­ine Bread being read to a preschool or kinder­garten class. The book has an instruc­tion­al qual­i­ty to it, and con­sti­tutes part of Fuchs’ series, The Liv­ing & Learn­ing Ency­clo­pe­dia for Chil­dren. As a result, it’s best use will be in a library or school class­room. In the hands of a teacher, using it to help stu­dents under­stand where food comes from, it will be a valu­able and enjoy­able resource. Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 3 – 6
Lau­ren Kramer is a Van­cou­ver-based jour­nal­ist, wife, and moth­er with a life­long pas­sion for lit­er­a­ture. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, she has won awards for her writ­ing and report­ed from many cor­ners of the world. Read more of her work at www​.lau​renkramer​.net.

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