The Hole Story of the Doughnut

by Pat Miller, Vincent X. Kirsch (Illustrator)

Overview

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.   

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544319615
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/03/2016
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	10.50(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	AD900L (what's this?)
Age Range:	6 - 9 Years

About the Author

Pat Miller is Contributing Editor for "LibrarySparks" magazine, and has written 20 professional books and 200 articles for school librarians. Her first published book Substitute Groundhog was names a Junior Library Guild Selection. She is a former school librarian, married to a former school principal. They have three grown children who read to their toddlers, and an illiterate Jack Russell terrier. Visit her at www.patmillerbooks.com/.

Vincent X. Kirsch is the author and illustrator who has worked with publishers such has Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, and Bloomsbury USA, where artwork for his first book Natalie and Naughtily was accepted into the 2008 Original Art Show at the Society of Illustrators in New York. He now lives in Los Angeles, California. Noah Webster and His Words is his first book with Houghton Mifflin.

Visit his website at vincentxkirsch.com.

Editorial Reviews

03/14/2016
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. Author’s agent: Stephen Fraser, Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency. Illustrator’s agent: Christa Heschke, McIntosh & Otis. (May)

Publishers Weekly

2017 ILA-CBC Children's Choice List "Delicious!" —Kirkus "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 "Playful cartoons and dramatic narration tell the true tale of a New England mariner turned doughnut inventor... 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." —Publishers Weekly   —

From the Publisher

03/01/2016
K-Gr 3—This surprising account of the invention of the doughnut introduces readers to master mariner Hanson Crockett Gregory from Rockport, ME. As a young ship's cook in 1847, Gregory prepared the standard breakfast of balls of fried sweet dough. The sailors called them "sinkers" because although the dough fried up crisp and sweet around the edges, "their raw centers, heavy with grease, made them drop like cannonballs in the stomach." Gregory had a better idea and shaped a new batch by cutting holes in the center of each sinker and then frying them in boiling lard. The doughnut was born. Although Hanson went on to become a ship's captain and was awarded a medal for heroism for his actions at sea, his legacy is his delicious creation. This book relates some of the many colorful legends that have surrounded the origins of this sweet treat over the years. The short, humorous text delivers facts that young children will appreciate, while keeping the interest of the more mature. Kirsch has admirably complemented the story with bright, cartoonlike illustrations that evoke the history and the humor of the tale. Clever "porthole," or "doughnut hole," borders frame each page. Whimsically, the artist has placed doughnuts throughout, from the endpapers, which include several varieties, to the back cover, which features an octopus holding a doughnut on each arm. VERDICT 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.—Carole Phillips, Greenacres Elementary School, Scarsdale, NY

School Library Journal

2016-02-17
Miller shares the true story of the invention of the doughnut with the hole in its center. Hanson Gregory began his career at sea in 1844, at age 13, eventually captaining cargo schooners and clippers. As cook's assistant in 1847, while preparing the usual deep-fried cakes for breakfast, Hanson had an idea. The sailors called the cakes "sinkers": they were crisp at the edges but raw and greasy in the middle. Using the lid from a pepper tin to cut a hole in each cake's center, Hanson fried a batch of cakes that "were brown, and sweet, and fully cooked. Sighs of delight rose above the noisy sea. A new breakfast tradition was born." The author's research unfolds a couple of colorful, alternate legends of the doughnut's seagoing origins, since, naturally, "sailors like their stories bold." Miller also recounts comments that Capt. Gregory made in a 1916 newspaper interview. "He laughed as he teased the reporter that he had invented ‘the first hole ever seen by mortal eyes.' " Kirsch's charming watercolor collages liberally employ round motifs: on many spreads, the circular illustration on the right page is "cut" from the left, freeing up a circle of white space for text. Endpapers sport scores of holey doughnuts, many decorated nautically, and semaphore flags on the copyright page spell out "eat doughnuts." Kirsch does not, however, take the opportunity to represent the racial diversity of 19th-century sailing crews. Delicious! (period photograph, author's note, timeline, selected bibliography of adult sources) (Picture book/biography. 6-9)

Kirkus Reviews