Suggested Reading
Take This Bread by Sara Miles, Ballentine Books, New York, 2007
This is our Summer Reading Book for 2008 (Order from Amazon below, or pick up a copy at the Church.
“Early one morning, for no earthly reason, Sara Miles, raised an atheist, wandered into a church, received communion, and found herself transformed—embracing a faith she’d once scorned. A lesbian left-wing journalist who’d covered revolutions around the world, Miles didn’t discover a religion that was about angels or good behavior or piety; her faith centered on real hunger, real food, and real bodies. Before long, she turned the bread she ate at communion into tons of groceries, piled on the church’s altar to be given away. Within a few years, she and the people she served had started nearly a dozen food pantries in the poorest parts of their city. Take This Bread is rich with real-life Dickensian characters—church ladies, millionaires, schizophrenics, bishops, and thieves—all blown into Miles life by the relentless force of her newfound calling. Here, in this achingly beautiful, passionate book, is the living communion of Christ.” --From the back cover of Take this Bread
This is not a book that most children would take down from the shelf at a library to read. However, it is an excellent book for adults to read and then share with children. It is the story of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Both are introduced in the story in their early years. They meet after Dr. King put out the call for “all of God’s children to join the march”, that is the march for civil rights in Alabama. The men became friends from that time on.
The illustrations are watercolor and colored pencil. They put pictures to the words, words that may be new to many children. They are lovely illustrations. Seeing Rev. King and Rabbi Heschel leading a march down the street, arm-in-arm give life to the words of Abraham to Martin, “I feel like my legs are praying”.
The book provides a website for those using this book with children. It contains a variety of teaching tools and ideas. www.randomhouse.com/teachers
Reviewed by: Patti L. Briner