Review by Alison Wong
Tundra Books, Penguin Random House, October 3rd, 2023
40 pages, Hardcover, $23.99 CAN, 9780735271760
Picture Book, Ages 3-7, Preschool-Grade 2
Fiction
So the next time you make bread, remember there is only one way to make it: your way.
With its unique storytelling and breathtaking illustrations, this extraordinary book celebrates diversity through love, family, and bread!
Written by Cristina Quintero, The Only Way To Make Bread features breadmakers who come from all walks of life, showing young readers the beauty of diversity and equality. Despite their differences, these breadmakers do have one thing in common: the way they make bread. Using a recipe to tell this heartwarming tale, Quintero humanizes the process of breadmaking and ultimately shows us the undeniable love and connection we all share with food from our culture.
Both Sarah Gonzales and Cristina Quintero do an excellent job of blending illustrations and writing together to reveal a bigger picture. Using the simple art medium of colored pencils and a warm color palette, Gonzales encapsulates the very essence of Quintero’s writing: to feel the love of your family when baking. While featuring families from different cultures making bread in Gonzales’ drawings, Quintero explains the various ingredients and methods used in the assorted bread. Both the graphics and writing are intertwined, promoting harmony amongst different cultures while also celebrating diversity.
With the help of Quintero’s unique writing, this inexplicable connection built between culture and harmony invites us as readers to further link it to the concept of love. Quintero not only emphasizes the structural methods used to make bread, but she also reveals a more subjective approach to making it. On a deeper level, she encourages readers to make bread with love and to make it their own way. This concept of individuality and love can be connected to what Quintero has been saying all along. Just like how we love and accept different cultures of bread, we should love and accept everyone despite our differences.
Not only is this book educational, it is also quite fun to read. In its final pages, Quintero gives readers a glimpse of the different types of bread in the world plus a few bonus pages of bread recipes that children can actually try with their parents. Quintero doesn’t just let readers know about the joys of baking with your loved ones, she also encourages us to experience it!
Coming out this fall, The Only Way to Make Bread proves itself to be a new family favourite. With a timeless message and adorable graphics, this book is certain to be a good read no matter how old you are.
Alison Wong is a UBC student from Hong Kong studying English literature. In her free time, she likes to read young adult books, re-watch her favorite sitcoms or discover new K-dramas.
YOUNG ADULTING 