HOT LUNCH

Light and tasty, this humorous confection is seasoned with just enough teen angst to keep things interesting. The alternative-school setting will be familiar to some readers, while others will find it adds spice to the humorous tale. Molly, a deliberately sullen blue-haired outcast, and chirpy Cassie, new in school, clash first over a shared assignment in sophomore English then act out their enmity in a food fight. Forced by their progressive principal to work together in the cafeteria, the two girls take quite a while to settle their differences. Well-realized supporting characters—nerdy Clyde, the freshman lunchroom attendant/aspiring pastry chef and Edmund, the tattooed 20-something slacker whose “help” in the kitchen isn’t quite what it seems—add to the fun. Bradley slips in an impassioned plea for taking food seriously and making good choices for ourselves and the planet, but he has laid the groundwork so solidly that this message emerges naturally from his characters’ growth and thus is perfectly palatable. Down to earth and satisfying, like the simple recipes it celebrates. (Fiction. 12-16)