Many little children love to hear stories about what they were like when they were babies. "Did I cry a lot?" "Was I cute?" "Were you glad I was born?" are just a few of the questions they like to ask. They like to hear about how they rocked by one parent, or sung to by another. They laugh when they hear about how one of their parents drove around for hours with baby in the car seat just to get baby to stop crying.
In today's picture book, you will meet two new parents who discover that sometimes you need to be creative when you have an unhappy baby in the house.
Nicola Winstanley
Illustrated by Janice Nadeau
Picture Book
For ages 4 to 6
Kids Can Press, 2011, 978-1-55337-821-1
Miriam is a fabulous baker who makes all kinds of breads in her little bakery. Every day she ends her baking by making cinnamon bread. While she kneads the raisins into the dough, Miriam sings so that “the smell of cinnamon and the sound of her beautiful voice rose together and curled through the air.”
One day Sebastian is going past the bakery when he hears Miriam’s lovely voice. He immediately goes inside the shop and buys a loaf of cinnamon bread. After buying a loaf of the wonderful bread every day for a year, Sebastian asks Miriam to marry him.
Soon the happy couple have their first child, a baby girl with “big brown eyes and dusky skin.” At first all goes well, but then the baby starts to cry, and though they try everything they can think of, Miriam and Sebastian cannot get their daughter to stop crying. The baby is not sick, so what is upsetting her so?
In this delightful picture book, a lyrical text is paired with multimedia art to give readers a story that is unusual and a joy to read. The tale explores the special connection a baby has with her mother. Children and parents connect on many levels, and in this book we discover that babies are soothed when all their senses are engaged by things that that make them feel loved and safe.
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