Frederick Lipp (right) with Maria Padian (left) and Kirsten Cappy (center)

Frederick Lipp describes the inspiration for Bread Song as an “Aha!” moment. This children’s picture book captures members of the Portland community helping a young Thai immigrant overcome his fears of learning a new language. It is a wonderful portrait of the welcoming environment and diverse backgrounds that makes up Portland.

VISIT Frederick Lipp’s website

JOIN US in celebrating this book with the author Fred Lipp on July 24 at the Portland Public Library

On Writing Bread Song

While minister of First Parish in Portland, my favorite stop was for a cup of coffee and a lemon poppy seed muffin at Standard Bakery. Early one morning in search of a picture book story, I asked the owner, “Alison is there something so unique, like a secret in the bakery that you can share with me?”

Without hesitation she answered, “All bakers know the secret of what’s called the “Bread Song” – when we take the newly baked loaves out of the oven at dawn, they snap, crackle and wonderfully sing!”

Before the sun was up the next morning, I attended this life changing concert, and found my calling for what became Bread Song. Twenty-five steps from Standard Bakery was a Thai restaurant. I knew that for many new neighbors coming from around the world that simply speaking in English was an unsurmountable task that made the walk into an English speaking bakery an emotional challenge.

I wondered about the impact of a new neighbor hearing the bread sing, and how it would loosen the tongue of a child so to feel more at home in a strange land.

“Aha!”

Salman Rushdie knew this secret when he wrote, ”My book celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs…Mélange, hotchpotch, a bit of this and a bit of that is how newness enters the world…My book is for change by fusion, change by conjoining. It is a love-song…”