DR. WELCH AND THE GREAT GRAPE STORY

Meidell creates an idealized, small-town setting in lusciously hued watercolors for Carney’s sunny account of the invention of grape juice—that was produced by New Jersey dentist Thomas Bramwell Welch as a nonalcoholic alternative to communion wine for fellow Methodists. Though the author does mention Louis Pasteur’s discoveries about the role molds and yeasts play in fermentation, readers will learn more about Welch’s motives than details of his process. Still, it makes an intriguing tale, and Carney caps it with a brief corporate history that connects the dots between Welch’s early (and unsuccessful) efforts to sell his “unfermented wine” and its modern, multinational, ubiquity. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)