15th January Bagel Day

It's Bagel Day and I have written about this before. I haven't purchased any new bagel books for the library since then, so what I said then still stands.

Read my previous entry here.

16th October International Bread Day

It is a day to celebrate everything to do with bread and bakers. I have written about this day before, but it was a long time ago in 2012. This is a day dedicated to a very traditional food all over the world, in order to raise awareness of its nutritional value and its great importance in our diet.

Like most things, it is easy to celebrate this day with reference to picture books. Here's some good ones to start with:

   
• Hooray for Bread  by Allan Ahlberg

• The Only Way to Make Bread  by Cristina Quintero

• Toasty  by Sarah Huang

• Tony's Bread  by Tommy dePaola

• Nanette's Baguette  by Mo Willems

• Monsieur Saguette and his Baguette by Frank Asch

• Mr Balinsky's Bagels  by Ellen Schwartz

 

• Fry Bread by Kevin Noble Maillard

• Mr McGee and the Big Bag of Bread by Pamela Allen

• Round is a Tortilla  by Roseanne Greenfield Thong

• Chapati Moon  by Pippa Goodhart

• Walter the Baker  by Eric Carle

15th January Bagel Day

What is a bagel? Some children asked me this years ago when I first read Mr Belinsky's Bagels to them, but now I sometimes see them in lunchboxes because they are now much easier to find in Australia. Of course we don't have as much choice as you might get in New York, but we certainly can enjoy sweet and savoury ones here. When my children were small my son used to love the blueberry bagels and my daughter liked them to be plain but have cream cheese and smoked salmon on them.

Bagels originated in Poland, many centuries ago. Bread was considered one of the most holy foods, and under Jewish dietary restrictions, bread could not be eaten until after hands were washed and a blessing was read. At this time, most Jews earned their living as peddlers, so when traveling the countryside they usually couldn’t eat bread because clean water was rarely available.

Boiling before baking made bagels fall out of the category of traditional bread. Therefore, Jewish people were able to eat this type of bread without having to go through the usual religious rituals of hand washing and blessing the bread before eating. Polish immigrants took bagels to America and now we can buy them all over the world. 

Why celebrate them with a day to themselves? Unfortunately, no one really knows who invented National Bagel Day. All that’s really known is that it was started sometime during the 2000s. The only thing that’s really known is that whoever created it gave us a good excuse to eat a bagel! And read about them...

Fun facts

• Bagels are always round

• Bagels are boiled before they are baked

• The name bagel comes from the German word “bougel,” a name which means bracelet.

Now read:

• Mr.  Belinsky's Bagels by Ellen Schwartz and Stefan Czernecki

• Bagels from Benny  by Aubrey Davis and Susan Petricic

• Barking Bagels by Michael Rosen and Tony Ross

• The Bagel King by Andrew Larson and Sandy Nichols

• Where on Earth is My Bagel?  by Frances and Ginger Park and Grace Lin

24th November Fairy Bread Day

The 24th November is Fairy Bread Day everywhere, but it means more to Australians because fairy bread is native to Australia — something we can all be very proud of. 

Fairy bread is sliced white bread spread with margarine or butter and covered with hundreds and thousands, which adhere to the bread. It is typically cut into two triangles. It dates back to the 1920s in Australia, and is first recorded in The Hobart Mercury, which describes children consuming the food at a party. It continues to be popular at children's birthday parties and every Australian adult will have fond memories of fairy bread parties. A dear friend of mine actually has her birthday on the 24th November so I'm sure she'll be having fairy bread parties for quite some time yet. 

If you are reading a book set in Australia and a birthday is celebrated there may well be mention of fairy bread, but Ursula Dubosarsky took the iconic Australian party food and made it the focus of a whole book for beginning readers. Becky wants lots of fairy bread at her party, but there is too much. It is amazing all the things she thinks to do with it. For the readers in my library it is a favourite in the Nibbles series. 

Another beginning novel that is out of print but likely to be in many Australian school libraries is Bob the Builder and the Elves by Gillian Rubinstein. In this delightful story messy Bob has elves who clean for him and when they leave they leave him fairy bread to eat. He wants these elves gone from his house and enlists the help of his friendly neighbour, librarian Lily Sweet. Even some of the boys at school enjoy this story. Blake Education has teaching activities to go with this book.

There must be other Australian stories that feature fairy bread. Can you think of any? Interestingly the most iconic Australian book featuring food, Possum Magic doesn't feature it.

The name 'fairy bread' supposedly came about from a line in a poem, Scottish-born novelist  Robert Louis Stevenson published in 1885. It is poem 37 in 

A Child’s Garden of Verses and Underwoods.  1913.

37. Fairy Bread

COME up here, O dusty feet!
Here is fairy bread to eat.
Here in my retiring room,
Children, you may dine
On the golden smell of broom
And the shade of pine;
And when you have eaten well,
Fairy stories hear and tell.

15th - 21st Gardening Week 16th - 22nd April Bread Week

It is Bread Week in the UK.  It is also Gardening Week. The UK certainly knows what to celebrate. Gardens and bread are two things that I love!

There are so many wonderful picture books that could be used to celebrate these two topics. I have a Pinterest board on gardening and any book I would recommend is likely to be there. I have written about picture books that celebrate bread on this blog before, but I would like to add this new celebration of bread and the things we do with it, Hooray for Bread by Allan Ahlberg and Bruce Ingman.

16th October World Bread Day

World Bread Day provides us with the opportunity to talk about bread and bakers, to find out about their history, their importance and their future. It also gave me an excuse today to put together a very hurried display of books on the topic of bread. While the library had quite a few nonfiction books about bread as food, bread as a cooking or craft activity and bakers I was more interested in finding some fiction titles. I found quite a few:
• Everybody Bakes Bread by Norah Dooley
• Brown Bread and Honey by Pamela Allen
• Mr McGee and the Big Bag of Bread by Pamela Allen
• Mr Belinsky's Bagels by ellen Schwartz
• The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord
•  Monsieur Saguette and his Baguette by Frank Asch
• Zed's Bread by Mick Manning & Brita Granstrom
• Sun Bread by Elisa Kleven
• Tony's Bread by Tomie dePaola
• Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban