Wheat

This is not what you'd call a nutritiously-correct guide to wheat. Not only will viewers hear nary a word about why that golden yellow grain turns into a fine white powder (it's bleached all to heck), they're also informed that a "hot dog in a bun" (and not a whole wheat bun from the looks of it) is a food that's "good for you." From Susan DeBeck, creator of Apples (VL-5/97), Dinosaurs and others, Wheat takes a rather scattershot approach to its subject, opening with a group of kids watching wheat being moved from a silo into a truck, followed by a section on ancient Egypt and the biblical story of Joseph, a segment on the centuries-old style of planting wheat until modern machinery streamlined the process, and a visit to a mill. During the technical description of the mill's operation, I finally realized what was kind of bugging me; it wasn't even necessarily the bouncing around from topic to topic, so much, as the fact that the narrators were--in certain places like the milling segment--talking too fast. Conversely, Wheat offers very little chaff; in addition to all of the foregoing, young viewers will learn wheat's life cycle, watch huge mechanical monsters plant and reap, see how to grow their own mini wheat field, discover the art of the pizza dough toss, and more. An informed instructor armed with the accompanying study guide could get good use out of this program; the aforementioned drawbacks, however, make it an optional purchase for public libraries. Aud: E, I, P. (R. Pitman)