Sharing the Bread: An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving Story

by Pat Zietlow Miller, Jill McElmurry (Illustrator)

Overview

Celebrate food and family with this heartwarming Thanksgiving picture book. We will share the risen bread. / Our made-with-love Thanksgiving spread. / Grateful to be warm and fed. / We will share the bread. In this spirited ode to the holiday, set at the turn of the twentieth century, a large family works together to make their special meal. Mama prepares the turkey, Daddy tends the fire, Sister kneads, and Brother bastes. Everyone—from Grandma and Grandpa to the littlest baby—has a special job to do. Told in spare, rhythmic verse and lively illustrations, Sharing the Bread is a perfect read-aloud to celebrate the Thanksgiving tradition.

"A warm and wonderful holiday treasure." —Publishers Weekly, Starred

"A paean to the pleasures of Thanksgiving, with rhymes so musical readers may just burst into song." —The Wall Street Journal

"A delightful holiday book that shows the heartwarming tradition of food and family." —Booklist
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307981820
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	09/22/2015
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	AD340L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Pat Zietlow Miller received an Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Honor for Sophie's Squash, her picture-book debut, which was the recipient of four starred reviews, a Charlotte Zolotow Honor, and a Golden Kite Award. She is also the author of Wherever You Go. Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday, and every year her family works together to make a meal, almost as well as the family in this book. Pat lives in Madison, Wisconsin. Visit the author at patzietlowmiller.com.
 
Jill McElmurry has illustrated many picture books for children, including the bestseller Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle, The Tree Lady by H. Joseph Hopkins, and Mario Makes a Move, which she also wrote. When she was fifteen, her family was invited to Thanksgiving in a giant Queen Anne–style Victorian house. Every table was laden with gorgeous treats, and she ate so much she couldn’t stand up straight for two days. Jill lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Learn more at jillmcelmurry.com.

Editorial Reviews

★ 08/24/2015
Miller’s Wherever You Go showcased her talent for creating pitch-perfect rhymes, and that skill is just as present in this portrait of a family in 19th-century America, as they prepare their Thanksgiving feast. The narration is essentially a set of orders being delivered by the family’s young son, but when his commands are this sweet (“Grandpa, cook the berries please./ Boil those bright red berries, please./ Add some lemon—just a squeeze./ Grandpa, cook them, please.”), who can begrudge him? McElmurry’s gouache paintings exude familial affection: the boy’s mother and father sneak loving glances of each other in the midst of the preparations, and the boy takes a moment to peer at his baby sibling, sleeping “snug and happy in our house.” This is a warm and wonderful holiday treasure. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Ammi-Joan Paquette, Erin Murphy Literary Agency. Illustrator’s agent: Marcia Wernick, Wernick & Pratt Agency. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

This is a warm and wonderful holiday treasure.” —Publishers Weekly starred review

From the Publisher

07/01/2015
K-Gr 2—Everyone helps prepare Thanksgiving dinner in this new holiday offering set in the 19th century. From fetching the cooking pot to folding pilgrim hats, each of the 10 members in this family has a job to do. Narrated by the younger brother in rhyming four-line verse, each spread highlights one aspect of the meal preparations and the relative responsible for it: sister kneads the bread dough, grandpa cooks the berries, auntie mashes the potatoes, etc. The youngster's excitement with the day is conveyed through repetition and simple rhymes and rhythm that mirror the ease with which the family works together in anticipation of their meal. McElmurry's illustrations depict a traditional middle-class family in aprons over their Sunday best. The gouache on watercolor paper affords a three-dimensional, old-fashioned quality to the setting and characters, while the ever-present family dog and cat offer relatable detail for today's digital natives. Muted tones of brown, gray, blue, and black dominate the color scheme and lend authenticity to this celebratory tribute to our national holiday. VERDICT This book captures the spirit of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner but may require hand-selling to kids to secure a trip to the circulation desk.—Lynn Van Auken, Oak Bluffs School, MA

School Library Journal

2015-06-06
A gentle rhyme scheme and a palette that brings to mind folk art shape a nostalgic and rather sentimental view of the holiday. The narrator is one of the small boys of the featured household, and he, with his red hair and russet waistcoat, is in every frame. Each family member has a task. Daddy fills the wood stove, Mama prepares the turkey, Brother bastes it, Grandpa makes the cranberry sauce, and so on. All of the activity is related in an easy, pleasing rhyme. "Sister, knead the rising dough. / Punch it down, then watch it grow. / Line your loaves up in a row. / Sister, knead the dough." The narrator assists wherever he can, though he needs Grandpa to hold him up to stir the berries, and it is his idea to make Pilgrim hats for place mats. While the clothing and kitchen items evoke the Victorian era, this is meant more as memory or imagination than history. One might quibble that a family this well-to-do would probably have had servants doing much of the cooking, that the menfolk would very likely have left the cooking duties to the women, and that the dog and cat who also figure in most of the scenes might not have gotten along quite so well (or been so present in the kitchen). It may be a romantic view, but it is nevertheless a very appealing one. (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews