Cake

November 19, 2012
Magnin (the Bright’s Pond series) brings a sense of whimsy to a middle-grade novel that frosts layers of issues with quirky humor. Abandoned by her mother, 12-year-old Wilma Sue isn’t expecting much at her next foster home with retired missionary sisters Ruth and Naomi Beedlemeyer, who keep chickens and bake extraordinary and mysterious cakes. As Wilma Sue settles in, she makes a new friend, Penny, who is also struggling with difficulties in her family. When a disaster involving the chickens occurs, the problem can only be solved with love and honesty. Magnin has added many charming ingredients to her tale—animals, oddball names (Snipplesmith, Pigsworthy), and fantastical elements centered on the sisters’ cakes. She also has her pulse on a child’s yearning to belong and be loved. It doesn’t all add up; Wilma Sue can be a little too precocious (would a child’s eye know “stone that looked like mica schist”?). But Magnin’s riotous imagination is fun to run with; she’s cooked up a sweet story. Ages 9–up.

Starred review from December 15, 2012
Can an oft-rejected orphan settle into the stable, loving home of a pair of gentle sisters who are retired missionaries to Africa? Twelve-year-old Wilma Sue's been bounced from home to home in her short life. Now it's hard for her to believe she even deserves a real home. In a winsomely attractive first-person narration, she relates her growing wonder with Ruth, a social activist, and Naomi, who bakes cakes that are somehow infused with magic. Naomi brings the cakes to deserving members of their tightknit community, each confection perfectly matched to its needy recipient. The sisters also keep chickens that move from being Wilma Sue's responsibility to her calling. Penny, a girl who lives just down the street seems like the only obstruction to happiness. In many ways, she is more damaged than Wilma Sue, struggling to satisfy her widowed mother's unmet needs, an impossible task. Magnin maintains a delicate balance between a fablelike fantasy and reality fiction as Wilma Sue gradually discovers that not only is she eminently worthy of love, but that she can also help the people around her by loving them. Wilma's captivating, clever language and short declarative sentences perfectly exemplify her wary but reverential view of the world. Although the message is sometimes spelled out instead of implied, it's a minor flaw in this worthy, heartwarming effort. (Fantasy. 10-15)

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March 1, 2013

Gr 4-6-Wilma Sue, 12, is entering her third foster home, hoping that she won't land back at the Daylily Home for Children. This time, she's placed with eccentric sisters Ruth and Naomi, former missionaries in Malawi. Wilma Sue is welcomed immediately as part of the household and is soon helping Naomi bake cakes for neighbors in need-cakes that seem to have magical powers, though Wilma Sue, despite her sneakiest efforts, can't figure out the secret ingredient. Ruth and Naomi gently guide her as she learns to deal with difficult neighbors, accept love, and feel at home. The bulk of the action takes place in the final 40 pages, as a Malawi-inspired village council of elders is assembled to deliberate over a recently burned chicken coop. Only the most patient and determined readers will make it that far, though; the abundance of sophisticated descriptions and similes, glaring inconsistencies, and scattered cast of random characters will turn most readers away. Wilma Sue, who uses outdated phrases like "leapin' red lizards!" and passionately reads Beowulf (passages of which are quoted in the text), is tough to believe. The magical effects of Naomi's cakes don't receive enough attention, and readers may be disappointed that they are never explained.-Amanda Struckmeyer, Middleton Public Library, Madison, WI

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