Thursday, April 5, 2012

Friendship Bread by Darien Gee

Last summer, the Fantastic Fictioneers, one of our library's book discussion groups, read The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede. This book is a true account of what happened in Gander, Newfoundland on September 11, 2001. Thirty-six planes with more than 6,000 passengers were diverted to Gander (population 10,000) because of the 9/11 attack. This small town and nearby communities amazingly provided these stranded people with every comfort they could imagine.
Friendship Bread by Darien Gee is another wonderful story of people-helping-people. In the fictional town of Avalon, Illinois, a young mother is struggling with a personal tragedy. Julia receives a starter of Amish friendship bread and the story begins. By sharing the recipe, she meets newcomers in town and connects with old friends. In a tiny tea shop, friends and neighbors bond by sharing the friendship bread, adding their own variations to the recipe. When a nearby community suffers a weather disaster, the ladies of Avalon use the tea shop and lots of friendship bread to help the neighboring town cope with their catastrophe.
I was reminded of this book again with the recent outbreak of tornades to the South. I'm sure many moving stories came out of Henryville and the neighboring communities--a lot of really feel-good stories. So read this really feel-good book.