CRUMBLE

A young girl learns to wield dessert-based magic while coping with loss.

Emily’s mom travels the world, giving talks about magic baking, but Emily is happy with their monthly family dinners and her cozy life with her aunt Gina, who runs a bakery where they sell baked goods magically imbued with good feelings. With support from her best friend, Dae, Emily practices her own magical baking skills and shares the results with her classmates (and the recipes with readers). Suddenly, Emily’s life changes forever when her aunt dies in a car accident. Emily soon learns why it’s not a good idea to magically bake bad feelings when she inadvertently makes all her classmates sick. Through Bell’s cute, expressive, contemporary artwork and McClaren’s uncomplicated yet profound writing, the story teaches a lesson about healthy grieving with subtlety and care and without platitudes. The characterization is deeply human, particularly of Emily’s mom, who is trying her best to be a good parent while grieving, even as she unintentionally upends Emily’s life. In the end, Emily begins to accept instead of sublimate her grief and the permanent change in her life. Emily and her family are light-skinned, while best friend Dae is Korean American as well as gender-nonconforming.

Deliciously cute, funny, and touching.