A great chat with Mara Rockliff. I promise you’ll want to eat a gingerbread cookie afterwords. Or maybe two or three. 🙂
All illustrations © 2015 Vincent X. Kirsch.
There’s nothing more delicious than learning something new about a well-loved food.
When I think of gingerbread, I think of Emily Dickinson lowering basketfuls to the neighborhood children, Laura Ingalls Wilder setting out a pan to cool at Rocky Ridge Farm, or Emily Brontë baking a family parkin. I’d read about gingerbread’s long and interesting history, marveling that Queen Elizabeth I was essentially responsible for the gingerbread boy cookies we now bake every holiday season. But I never imagined a gingerbread baker could be an unsung hero in Revolutionary history.
Officially hitting shelves today, Mara Rockliff’sGingerbread for Liberty!: How a German Baker Helped Win the American Revolution (HMH, 2015), introduces young readers to Christopher Ludwick, a German-born American patriot living in Philadelphia, who as Baker General of the Continental Army, fed General George Washington’s troops and even snuck off…
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Happy to learn about this terrific book. And yes–on a snowy day like this one, a gingerbread cookie would be perfect 🙂
Annina, I just ordered it! Can’t wait to share it with my son. Stay warm! 🙂
Not only eat the cookies but read her other books for more great recipes! I also love that she first learned of this baker from an old magazine article! Thanks for sharing Robin! and Congratulations, Mara!
Kim, What a wonderful backstory! (In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess I am a HUGE fan of Mara’s books.)
I am behind climbing on the band wagon as I don’t read nearly the NF that I should! But better late than never right?! I am very glad to have caught up!!
I meant to add – that I caught up by first reading The Grudgekeeper and really fell in love with that book!