A Pinch of Love
Barry Timms and Tisha Lee
Frances Lincoln Children’s Books

A little boy and his grandmother love to cook together and they especially like to make the titular pinch of love one of the ingredients no matter what they bake. Through Barry Timms’ rhyming text and Tisha Lee’s vibrant acrylic illustrations, that heartfelt love is shared throughout the local community. We see the empathetic little lad out offering fresh cookies to those in the neighbourhood; he seems to know just when there’s a need for a tasty treat that contains that vital ingredient.

Readers will enjoy the ‘sticky moments’ grandmother and grandson share in the kitchen as they too sometimes need a touch of tenderness especially as they prepare for that big neighbourhood fund raising bake sale at the community centre.

Choosing to be kind and loving isn’t always easy, but Tisha’s scenes of the wonderfully diverse community show just what a big difference it can make to be on the receiving end, as well as for the giver.

Love can be a power like no other: that message comes across in both the skilfully mixed text and the illustrations that add further heartwarming details to the words.

A lovely book to share with children and a smashing starting point for a class or local group event along the lines of the one shown in this story: baking/food is both a means and a metaphor for ‘paying it forward’.