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

               Since we got so many free nonfiction books from the Agriculture in the Classroom presentation we attended, I thought that I would take advantage of this opportunity to actually read one of them! I found Bread Comes to Life: A Garden of Wheat and a Loaf to Eat by George Levenson to be lacking and content and instead to be propagandist towards bread over all other type of foods (not surprising, considering it was donated to Agriculture in the Classroom by the Virginia Small Grains Board).  The short book talks about different types of bread and also vaguely follows the journey grain takes from the field to the oven to being bread.  This book would not function very well as read aloud, or an explanation book for a learning cycle lesson on grain to bread. However, I do think this bread would be good for a reader in the primary grade who likes nonfiction. It is written in a sing-songy poem verse which I think would appeal to younger readers, and it does have absolutely beautiful photography and a good one-to-one text to pictures. 
               Something I did not consider until I saw this review on Amazon.com was that it would be a good book to teach the economics of natural resources and how grain goes from bread to the table. This again, would work especially well with young children. There is also an educational video narrated by Lily Tomlin that goes along with this book.  This book has also gotten many awards, so maybe I am wrong, or maybe I have spent to much time in the upper grades, but for some reason I was just not impressed with this book!