Generous portions of yum for fans of mysteries and mille-feuille.
Mix one shy tween, one unwelcome new woman in her single dad’s life, one Victorian hotel, and one TV cook-off prone to mysterious failures. Shake and bake.
Ever since the fifth grade calf’s foot jelly incident, Alice has kept her love for cookery on the down low—but all bets are off after she learns that Hana, her food historian dad’s girlfriend, has signed him up for a weeklong reality cooking competition ominously christened Culinary Combat. Events conspire to keep Alice on the hop too, as the challenge of facing the show’s caustic, terrifying judge while preparing dishes like Victoria sponge cake and charlotte russe on camera—at first as her dad’s sous-chef, then alone after he’s eliminated for alleged misbehavior—is complicated by a string of malfunctioning appliances and other odd kitchen mishaps…not to mention her own tangled feelings about Hana, who introduces her to the intriguing world of Japanese desserts and is actually pretty cool in other ways. Spooning new friends with surprising talents, savvy detective work (it turns out the show does have a saboteur), and mouthwatering foodie talk (if no actual recipes) into this culinary caper, Delaney dishes up a savory tale that tests her young cuisinier—in the face of change as much as in the kitchen—on the way to a flying finish. Alice and her dad present White; Hana has some Japanese ancestry; and there is diversity in the supporting cast.
Generous portions of yum for fans of mysteries and mille-feuille. (Mystery. 10-13)Pub Date: May 11, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7352-6927-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Puffin/Penguin Random House Canada
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK TO SCREEN
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story.
Leaving Brooklyn behind, Black math-whiz and puzzle lover Bree starts a new life in Florida, where she’ll be tossed into the deep end in more ways than one. Keeping her head above water may be the trickiest puzzle yet.
While her dad is busy working and training in IT, Bree struggles at first to settle into Enith Brigitha Middle School, largely due to the school’s preoccupation with swimming—from the accomplishments of its namesake, a Black Olympian from Curaçao, to its near victory at the state swimming championships. But Bree can’t swim. To illustrate her anxiety around this fact, the graphic novel’s bright colors give way to gray thought bubbles with thick, darkened outlines expressing Bree’s deepest fears and doubts. This poignant visual crowds some panels just as anxious feelings can crowd the thoughts of otherwise star students like Bree. Ultimately, learning to swim turns out to be easy enough with the help of a kind older neighbor—a Black woman with a competitive swimming past of her own as well as a rich and bittersweet understanding of Black Americans’ relationship with swimming—who explains to Bree how racist obstacles of the past can become collective anxiety in the present. To her surprise, Bree, with her newfound water skills, eventually finds herself on the school’s swim team, navigating competition, her anxiety, and new, meaningful relationships.
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story. (Graphic fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-305677-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
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