Gr 3-5 - Wilson serves up a celebration of our country, its founders, and the immigrants who built it with this rhyming recipe. With frequent references to "America the Beautiful," the tribute includes tangible geographic ingredients such as "fruited plains," "fields/of amber grains," and "purple mountain majesties." Less-tangible fixings include meekness, might, courage, liberty, justice, freedom, dreams, forgiveness, and "customs/from faraway lands." As the bakers add these essentials, the larger-than-life pie rises in its cast-iron melting pot. While the rhymes are clever, they are also saccharine: "The secret ingredients/cannot be bought,/so borrow/from Heaven above./The key to it all/is to pour in the pot/plenty of/faith, hope, and love." Colón's signature cross-hatched ink-and-watercolor illustrations, both sunny and whimsical, are the key ingredient in this otherwise syrupy dish. An amiable cat and dog sporting chefs' hats first "preheat the world"-a giant globe over a campfire-and then consult a cookbook, roasting wieners while they wait. A huge rolling pin flattens fields where giant apples, pears, and berries dwarf two grazing cows. Immigrants in period costume, suitcases and American flags in hand, free fall into a safety net guarded by the furry bakers. Observant readers will spy the strategically placed American symbols including the bald eagle, Statue of Liberty, White House, Mount Rushmore, and Columbus's ships. Kelly DiPucchio's Liberty's Journey(Hyperion, 2004), which features striking art by Richard Egielski, covers similar ground with less sentimentality. Use this title to introduce immigration units.-Barbara Auerbach, New York City PublicSchools
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
How do you bake an American pie? Just follow this grandiose recipe and you'll have a taste of the first American pie made on the Fourth of July. Starting with a preheated world that's "hot with a hunger and thirst to be free" and a "giant melting pot," you spread out the "crust of fruited plains" and fold in amber fields of grain, add some "purple mountain majesties" and "leaven with dawn's early light." Ladle in some liberty and sprinkle with freedom. Wilson takes her ingredients from American history and song to concoct a patriot pie that fairly bubbles and steams with noble ideals and geographical splendors. Colon's ink-and-watercolor illustrations cleverly incorporate tons of iconographic Americana, surreal kitchen images and feline and canine master chefs who measure, fold, roll, pour, whisk, spice and bake this gargantuan culinary masterpiece with breathtaking skill. From page to shining page, this should be a tasty treat for young patriots. (Picture book. 4-8)
