Picture Book Review: How the Cookie Crumbled: The True (and Not-So-True) Stories of the Invention of the Chocolate Chip Cookie by Gilbert Ford

Cover of How the Cookie Crumbled: The True (and Not-So-True) Stories of the Invention of the Chocolate Chip Cookie by Gilbert Ford

How the Cookie Crumbled: The True (and Not-So-True) Stories of the Invention of the 
     Chocolate Chip Cookie
By Gilbert Ford
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
2017
Ages 5-9
Lexile 900

Information literacy is an essential topic in schools these days. From fake news to online hoaxes, educators recognize the importance of giving students the tools to locate and evaluate information. Many lessons on telling fact from fake focus on digital literacy, but misinformation and distortion of facts existed long before the internet. In How The Cookie Crumbled, Gilbert Ford has taken a event with multiple stories of how it happened, presented the reader with information, and invited them to decide what they believe is true. Readers must think critically about the facts presented in order to determine the most likely origin of Ruth Wakefield's Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies. Information literacy has never tasted so good.

Opening spread of How the Cookie Crumbled showing a children and a plate of cookies.

"Do these look familiar?" Ford begins our chocolate-flavored investigation by setting the stage for the cookie's creation. Ruth Wakefield is the undisputed inventor of the chocolate chip cookie, but how was it created? Before presenting the possible invention stories, Ford gives a brief biography of Wakefield. He shows her as an exacting person that, even as a child, saw cooking as a science. In the first spread introducing Wakefield, Ford's cartoon illustrations show an excited young Ruth and a deliberate older Ruth mixing and creating. The background information about Wakefield is an important key to evaluating the legitimacy of the cookie creation stories.

Ruth Wakefield baking as a child and adult in How the Cookie Crumbled

Ford relates three versions of the cookie's invention: the disaster, the substitute, and the mastermind. Each is presented in a comic-like spread. In the disaster and the substitute, the chocolate chip cookie came about by mistake; Wakefield was trying to do something else and just happened upon the delicious cookie. In the mastermind, though, the expert chef purposely developed the cookie. 

The Mastermind spread from How the Cookie Crumbled

After presenting the three versions of the story, Ford asks readers to consider what they know about Wakefield and choose which story they think is most likely. In his mind, it's a clear case of a mastermind creating one more delicious dessert, just as she was known for doing. 

Analysis of stories spread from How the Cookie Crumbled

Ford continues the story of the chocolate chip cookie's success and spread from a speciality of the Toll House Inn to a favorite of bakers across the United States. An author's note finishes the story with more details about Wakefield and the Toll House Inn, and a brief bibliography lists further sources of information about the cookie. A version of the original recipe for Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies is also included. With its appealing presentation of a little-known topic, How the Cookie Crumbled is a biography of a woman inventor and a lesson on information literacy that children will eat up.

Source: Library Copy

Further Reading:

• Lemelson-MIT "Ruth Wakefield"
• New York Times "Overlooked No More: Ruth Wakefield, Who Invented the Chocolate Chip Cookie"
• Serious Eats "Mrs. Wakefield's Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe"
• The Toast "Toll House Cookies: A Secret History"
• Twenty by Jenny "Interview Session with Gilbert Ford: How the Cookie Crumbled"

Further Viewing:

• The Irma Black Award & Cook Prize Ceremony 2018 Live Stream -- 44:52 - 48:04

Readalikes:

• The Chocolate Chip Cookie Queen: Ruth Wakefield and Her Yummy Invention by Carmen Bredeson
• Dumpling Dreams: How Joyce Chen Brought the Dumpling from Beijing to Cambridge by Carrie Clickard
• The Hole Story of the Doughnut by Pat Miller
• Mr. Crum's Potato Predicament by Anne Renaud
• The Way the Cookie Crumbled by Jody Jensen Shaffer