Making Heart-Bread.

Making Heart-Bread

Matthew Linn, S.J., Sheila Fabricant Linn, and Dennis Linn, authors

Francisco Miranda, illustrator

Paulist Press

997 MacArthur Boulevard, Mahwah, NJ 07430

0809167271 $16.95 www.paulistpress.com 1-800-218-1903

Making Heart-Bread is more than a picturebook--it teaches young readers how to take in emotional and spiritual nourishment from grateful memories of the day, and how to trust in the love of one's family and caretakers. Told from the point of view of a young girl who learns to make both tummy-bread and heart-bread from her beloved grandmother, Making Heart-Bread recounts the grandmother's childhood, when a terrible war left her on her own, until kind people took her in and cared for her. "No matter how often the grown-ups tried to tell us that we were safe now, nothing seemed to help. When we ate our bread at supper, we were afraid each bite might be the last food we would ever have. One day, one of the grown-ups had an idea. He saved some bread from supper. At bedtime, he gave each of us a piece to hold. Holding our bread next to our hearts, we could finally sleep in peace. All through the night, the bread reminded us, 'Today I ate and I will eat again tomorrow.'" Making Heart-Bread is not specifically a religious book; the simple techniques that it offers to reassure oneself that "Today I was loved and I will be loved again tomorrow" are a wonderful blessing to children of all backgrounds, and especially recommended for children in families who have undergone recent changes.