A delectable treat for food and literary connoisseurs alike
Eleven-year-old Mira “Mimi” Mackson is a baking prodigy from a small Massachusetts town called Comity (a thinly disguised Concord).
Mimi is the youngest member of a large family: Her Indian American mom is a successful software consultant, her white dad is a renowned food writer and critic, and her three older siblings (all biracial, like Mimi) excel at acting, dance, and soccer. Although Mimi enjoys creating new treats for her family and experimenting with uncommon flavors, she sometimes feels out of place and invisible amid her accomplished siblings. When a new bakery in town, the While Away Bakery and Café, announces a baking contest for children, Mimi is excited to compete and show off her talents. Things get complicated, however, when Mimi’s father falls under an enchantment that causes him to not only lose his refined sense of taste, but also eat everything in sight. Loosely based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and inspired by TV shows like The Great British Baking Show, LaRocca’s debut is original and compelling. The realistic characters and complex family dynamics augment the tightly knit plot, and the mouthwatering descriptions of food are guaranteed to make readers hungry. Three recipes at the end of the novel (based on the characters’ concoctions) are an added bonus for those interested in developing their culinary skills.
A delectable treat for food and literary connoisseurs alike . (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: June 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0888-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
A refreshing adventure featuring family, friendship, and the power of creating new recipes.
Shad Hadid plans to learn everything about being an alchemist—if necromancers don’t get him first.
After things didn’t work out with his hostile stepfather and stepsiblings, Shad left Lebanon with his father and grandparents to start over in Maine. Since his father and grandfather were killed in a car crash, it’s been just him and Teta, his grandmother. Eleven-year-old Shad spends his time baking new concoctions, staring in the windows of the only Arabic bakery in town, and dodging his bully (and one-time friend), Sarah Decker, a White girl with xenophobic parents. When he stumbles into an alley behind the bakery that he shouldn’t have been able to see, Shad learns that he is descended from alchemists. Eager to learn more, he enrolls in the Alexandria Academy only to find that they dismiss alchemy. Even worse, Sarah and Yakoub, his menacing stepbrother, are also students there. Clearly, it will be up to Shad to restore the alchemists to greatness and to deliver the school from the clutches of necromancers who seek to discover the key to immortality. As Shad makes friends, confronts bullies, and learns how alchemy is like both baking and science, he grows and gains confidence in himself. Alexandria Academy offers a fresh take on magic schools with dark secrets, and Shad and his friends, most of whom are Middle Eastern and North African, are engaging.
A refreshing adventure featuring family, friendship, and the power of creating new recipes. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-309481-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
All aboooooard!
Mbalia takes the legacy of Pullman porters as inspiration for his latest fantasy world rooted in Black lore and traditions in this series opener.
Twelve-year-old Jax Freeman is an unwilling transplant to Chicago, sent away from his Raleigh, North Carolina, home by his parents after an incident lands him in the juvenile justice system. Just about as soon as he descends from the train, the weirdness starts: Inanimate objects speak to him, a strange old woman tells him his ancestors need him, and a terrifying creature tries to steal his skin. The strangeness keeps building, from the inspirational signs at his grandmother’s house that keep changing their messages to the class in…magic?…at DuSable Middle School. And what’s with the peculiar reactions he gets whenever people learn his surname? Pretty soon Jax is riding a magic train called the Shriek, charged with a mission to heal a feud among the five magical summoning families of Chicago—a mission that killed his great-great-grandfather. Jax spends most of the novel in a state of frustration as he tries to understand this new world, and readers may sympathize as they wait with him for other characters to dole out information. Mbalia has so much fun developing the world’s rules and inhabitants, though, that readers will probably not mind the adventure’s bagginess. Jax has a digressive narrative style that runs to broad comedy, but it’s his fundamental decency that really shines.
All aboooooard! (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781368064736
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Freedom Fire/Disney
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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