Recipe for Trouble by Sheryl and Carrie Berk - Review and Giveaway

Berk, Sheryl and Carrie. Recipe for Trouble (Cupcake Club, 2). Sourcebooks, 2012. 192p. $6.99. 978-1402264528.



REVIEWED BY MGANNIE

Summary (provided by publisher)

The Peace, Love, and Cupcake Girls are ready for a new school year, but are they ready for the, well, drama? When Lexi lands the role of Juliet in the upcoming performance of Romeo and Juliet, she couldn’t be more excited, but when she finds out the leading man opposite her is her secret crush, Jeremy, the PLC gang sets its sights on match-making.

Things go quickly awry, though, when Jeremy throws away the “Bake Me I’m Yours” cupcake Lexi anonymously gives him. That’s not all! It seems that Jeremy has a few odd habits. For one, it turns out he doesn't eat any desert during lunch period. Then they notice that he keeps a stash of nuts with him at all times. Not to mention his over-frequent visits to the nurse’s office. What could be up with Jeremy?

What MGAnnie Thought

I read Recipe for Trouble, The Cupcake Club by mom and daughter authors, Sheryl and Carrie Berk. I loved it! It was about a girl named Lexi who really likes a boy. She also is busy and stressed with her cupcake club and her school play. She plays Juliet, and her crush is Romeo in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Could there be any more drama for a 5th grader? As a 5th grader myself, it was a fun read, and I would suggest it to 4th-6th graders. I loved how there were many references to Shakespeare and drama. I can't wait to try some of the recipes with my mom! I am looking forward to reading more books in this series, Winner Bakes All sounds fun! In all, this book was baked to perfection!

About the Authors
Sheryl is the founding editor in chief of Life & Style Weekly as well as a contributor to InStyle, Martha Stewart, and other publications.  Her daughter, Carrie, cooked up the idea for THE CUPCAKE CLUB series in second grade. Carrie maintains her own cupcake blog, featuring reviews, photos and recipes of her culinary adventures, called Carrie’s Cupcake Critiques (http://carriescupcakecritique.shutterfly.com/).

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FACEBOOK www.facebook.com/PLCCupcakeClub

GIVEAWAY!!!

You can read Recipe for Trouble for yourself! Just fill out the form below! One Entry per person. US ONLY. from November 5 - November 9, 2012 11:59pm

Names and Addresses will be removed at contest end. book will be sent direct from publishers.

Middle Grade Monday - Wheels of Change by Sue Macy

Macy, Sue. Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way). National Geographic for Children, Jan 2011. 96p. $18.95. 978-1-426-30761-4.
(amazon
| indiebound)

Genre: Informational (history of bicycle)
Rating: Chock full of info on the safety (what bikes were called)
Design: Bold and colorful with lots of sidebars to keep things interesting.

Layout: In Wheels of Change each chapter opens with a two-page spread featuring a full-page picture with caption one side and a quote and the beginnings of a some great information on the other side.  The chapter title spans both pages, is in white text with random upper/lowercase letters. Some of the letters have colorful openings. The information page also features a bike wheel. Throughout the book there are pull-outs and lots of color. At the end of every chapter there are features like "Cycling Slang" and each has a bright green background filled with white lettering and photos.

from my phone 8/11/12

Writing: Wheels of Change is chock-block full of information. We learn about the history of the bicycle - the design was imported from England by Albert Pope - it's many changes as they tried to make it lighter and safer, as well as how some people were for or against it for health-related reasons. The chapters also cover bicycle racing. Did you know there were a number of bicycling magazines including Bicycling for Ladies?  The most fascinating to me was the fight over whether the bicycle was good for women's health and what they should wear if allowed to ride it. I was fascinated with everything in the beginning but, despite it's slight 96 pages,  I felt a little bogged down with words by the fourth chapter. The conversational tone is what kept me reading through the author's notes.

Wheels of Change could be the basis of a variety of research papers or reports including women's rights, women's dress codes, female sportswriters, mobility, and female racers.

I would pair this one with Bootleg by Karen Blumenthal due to it's evolving and controversial nature or it could be paired with Amelia Lost by Candace Fleming for a study on women in history. Recommended.

Middle Grade Monday - Summer of the Gypsy Moths by Sara Pennypacker

Pennypacker, Sara. Summer of the Gypsy Moths. Balzer+Bray (HarperCollins), April 2012. 288p. $15.99. 978-0-0619-64206.

Genre: Realistic (foster kids)
Rating:  I really liked it!

Meet Stella, an 11-year-old who is just at her Great Aunt Louise's for the summer she hopes or as soon as her mom pulls her self together to come and get her. And then meet Angel, an 11-year-old determined to save up enough money to leave Louise's and get back with her family.

These two girls are being fostered by Louise in a small beach community. Louise lives in a big, old house with a wonderful garden. She's big and old herself but that doesn't stop her from taking care of the six cottages they rent to tourists each summer. But, this year, she's glad to have the help of Stella and Angel. Unfortunately, those two don't get along. And that's just the beginning of their unfortunate summer!

The first unfortunate part for me was the ease I found in putting this book down. I was mostly vested when I was reading it, but, if anything else looked interesting, I did it.  I think it was because there were too many points where the author told us things we should have been trying to figure out. Like "the back of my neck felt the way an alarm bell sounds, as if my skin were ringing." the first part of that sentence was perfect, I could picture the tight, loud feeling of her neck. I wonder if it's because Pennypacker normally writes for a much younger audience? The second unfortunate part for me was how long the girls were able to fool everyone around them. Are grown-ups really that clueless?

Overall, though, I liked how Stella and Angel accepted their differences and started working together. I also loved the ending. Give this one to fans of Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LeFleur.

Oh, don't you just love that cover? I do. It's what pushed it up on the TBR pile for me.

Middle Grade Monday - Serpent's Shadow by Rick Riordan

Riordan, Rick. Serpent's Shadow, The. Hyperion Books for Children, 2012. 416p. $16.99. 978-1423140573.


Genre: MG Fantasy
Rating: 4/5




This is the final book in The Kane Chronicles trilogy. Sadie and Carter Kane need to save the world again.  This time from the God of Chaos, Apophis.  Apophis is determined to eat the Sun God, Ra and plunge Earth back into it's primordial days.  He's going to wait until the equinox to do that though.  Meanwhile, he's been destroying a particular scroll that the Kanes believe hold the secret to his destruction.

For most of the book, The Kanes are split up. Sadie travels with Walt as they try to figure out where the dwarf God, Bes', shadow is so they can reunite the two. Carter and Zia, on the other hand, are following Setne around so they can get the Book of Thoth to help them do an execration. This provides a great opportunity for L-O-V-E.

Now, in Throne of Fire (TofF), 12-year-old Sadie was obsessed Anubis and Walt Stone. So much so, that I found it unrealistic. She is this strong-willed, purple-haired, combat boot wearing destruction magician who becomes consumed by her attraction to a  5,000 year old god. It didn't fit the girl we met in The Red Pyramid. It actually made me not like TofF as much as I would have without the love triangle. It's one of the reasons I only gave this one four stars. Now we have 13-year-old Sadie obsessed with Anubis and Walt Stone. In a way that adds nothing to the story. Sadie's overbearing personality never lets up so you can't see either boy making any headway. You don't get to see a relationship being built between Sadie and the boys either. It appears to be more of a plot device that I leads to something I can't speak of here. This plot device will probably show up in a spin-off series involving those two and Setne.

Carter and Zia also found love in TofF. At least Carter did. Zia was pretty much entombed or a shabti. Now that she's a "real girl" she's busy taking care of Ra. Traveling with Carter gives her an opportunity to get to know him as they spend time talking. It's not a lot of time, as we are on a doomsday schedule, but the conversations seem heartfelt. I can't shake the feeling that Zia is much too mature for Carter though. She seems more like she's in her early twenties compared to Carter's 15 years.

I had a small beef with how EASY many of the challenges were. This book felt more like a setup than a final book. This pretty much was more of what we read in Red Pyramid and Throne of Fire. The series has been a nice introduction to Egyptian mythology, though. It reads slower than The Percy Jackson and The Olympian series but I found that enjoyable. I thought Riordan gave us more mythology than questing in these books, possibly because Egyptian mythology just hasn't been explored as much in children's books. Overall, I recommend this one to students who like mythology. Pair it with the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series which I'll be talking about in two weeks.

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Middle Grade Monday - The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen

Nielsen, Jennifer. False Prince, The. Scholastic, 2012. 6.99. 9780545433471. (reviewing the pb version from Scholastic Book Club)

Genre: Realistic, Adventure
Rating: 4/5

Latamer, Roden, Sage, and Tobias were "rescued" from various orphanages by Bevin Conner and his two henchmen, Cregan and Mott. Conner, a minor regent in the kingdom of Carthya, has it in his head that he can replace the missing Prince Jaron with a boy he trains in the art of princeliness. He just needs a boy who either looks like Prince Jaron or reminds people of him. Jaron has been missing for four years and presumed dead.  No body was ever recovered. If Conner can succeed at placing a false Jaron on the throne, he can rule through him.  Of course, Conner only needs one boy but he has four.

The False Prince is a lot more fun than it sounds.  Sage has a sly sense of humor and is smart to boot though he hides his intelligence from the others. He uses his wit to hide his true feelings and cause the others to underestimate him.  The other boys have an opportunity to move beyond the stereotype as we learn more about them while they study how to be a prince. Although the setting is not distinctive, it's not necessary to get the story across. There was one small surprise that might prove predictable if you are an avid reader though you still want to read to make sure you are right.

I recommend this one to 4th through 7th graders.




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