Module 10: A Big Cheese for the White House

Summary: The town of Cheshire, Massachusetts is known for its cheese, so when word comes that President Thomas Jefferson is using cheese from Norton, Connecticut, to serve his guests, John Leland comes up with a big plan to put Cheshire back on the map. Gathering milk from nearly 1000 cows, the townspeople work together to make a cheese wheel that weighs over 1200 pounds! John Leland and Phineas Dobbs travel together to take the cheese to Washington, D.C., where they present the giant wheel to President Jefferson at his residence.


Fleming, C., & Schindler, S. D. (2004). A big cheese for the white house, the true tale of a tremendous cheddar. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR).

My Impressions: The author sets a disclaimer at the beginning that all of the characters, except President Jefferson and John Leland, are fictional. The events are fictionalized, but a 1235 lb. cheddar was delivered to President Jefferson, where it lasted for years. The history is told as it needs to be: through the lens of the people involved in creating this mammoth cheese wheel. The story of the townspeople is engaging, and Phineas Dobbs, serving as the pessimistic foil to John Leland's optimist, is no less an engaging character for his dour predictions about the town's pet project. The author herself admits a few historical inaccuracies for the sake of story-telling, including calling Thomas Jefferson's presidential mansion "The White House," even though the White House wasn't called that for several years after the events of this book. This is a fun book to introduce kids to cheese-making and travel in the early days of the country.

Reviews:

"As she did in The Hatmaker's Sign, Fleming once again parlays a little-known historical nugget into a diverting picture book....With his finely detailed, droll pen and watercolor pictures, Schindler, who collaborated with Fleming on Madame LaGrande and Her So High, to the Sky, Uproarious Pompadour, wryly captures both the period flavor and tall-tale tone of the story. A satisfying, well-aged slice of American lore." -- Publisher's Weekly

A Big Cheese for the White House (August 30, 1999). Publisher's Weekly. Retrieved November 2, 2011, from http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-7894-2573-7.

"Sometimes, as this lively picture bock proves, truth is stranger than fiction. At the time of Jefferson's presidency, the folks in Cheshire, Massachusetts, home of the best cheese in the United States, "heard news that threatened to sour their curds forever."... How they solved problems...is a triumph of Yankee ingenuity documented in a reportorial, tongue-in-cheek style, extended in droll, elegantly limned pen, ink, and watercolor illustrations. The book is handsome — as pleasing to look at as it is delightful to read."  -- Horn Book

[A big cheese for the White House] [book review]. (1999). The Horn Book, 75(5), 594. 


Uses in the Library: This book would be great for a "slice of early American life" story time that includes a taste of traditionally made cheddar cheese (not the mass-produced and overly-processed cheese in Kraft singles).