The Hole Story of the Doughnut
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A colorful look at the true story behind one sea captain’s scrumptious legacy that has become one of our favorite snacks.
In 1843, fourteen-year-old Hanson Gregory left his family home in Rockport, Maine, and set sail as a cabin boy on the schooner Achorn, looking for high-stakes adventure on the high seas. Little did he know that a boatload of hungry sailors, coupled with his knack for creative problem-solving, would yield one of the world’s most prized and beloved pastries.
Lively and inventive cut-paper illustrations add a taste of whimsy to this sweet, fact-filled story that includes an extensive bibliography, author's note, and timeline.
“A lively offering for reading and sharing that will encourage the youngest of researchers to wonder and learn about other everyday items in their world.”—School Library Journal
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Playful cartoons and dramatic narration tell the true tale of a New England mariner turned doughnut inventor. Hanson Gregory, a cook's assistant aboard a schooner out of Maine in 1847, prepares the usual breakfast of fried cakes, called sinkers because "their raw centers, heavy with grease, made them drop like cannonballs in the stomach." In this aside (set within Gregory's larger biographical narrative), he removes the gooey centers one morning before frying the cakes, resulting in a welcome and fully cooked breakfast. In colorful scenes that evoke 1970s Schoolhouse Rock vignettes, Kirsch (Gingerbread for Liberty!) depict rows of wide-mouthed seafarers with entire doughnuts between their open jaws; later, sailors enter Gregory's mother's harbor-side doughnut shop stooped over and exit dancing jigs on the other side, "holey cakes" in hand. Mimicking Gregory's ring-cutting innovation, the book's memorable design takes large circular cuts out of Kirsch's vibrant watercolors, transplanting the circles to the facing pages while leaving behind an empty frame for Miller's (Substitute Groundhog) text. Ages 6 9.
