The Crepe Makers' Bond

March 7, 2011
The trio of friends from Crabtree's Discovering Pig Magic (2008) returns in a heartwarming story about family dynamics, friendship, and the sometimes frustrating search for one's identity. This time, the focus is on 14-year-old Ariel, who has two passions: cooking and best friends Matilda (aka "M") and Nicki. "Throwing myself into a cooking project is the only way to get out of my own head," says Ariel. "It always has been for me—when I'm working through a recipe I get absorbed by the process and there is no room for anything else." The close-knit group is threatened when M's mother gets a job, which means leaving the Bay area, and Nicki starts becoming strangely secretive. Ariel is desperate to preserve their friendship, but unsurprisingly, and to Ariel's dismay, things do not turn out as predictably as in her recipes. Crabtree intersperses thematically linked recipes throughout, including "Crepes of Wrath," "Too Cool for School Cucumber Salad," and "Once Misunderstood Twice Baked Potatoes," as well as cooking tips. Spot-on dialogue and sensitive portrayals of teenage emotions recommend this one. Ages 9–12.

Starred review from March 15, 2011

Funny, self-aware 14-year-old Ariel "find[s] making fantastic food gives me sanity" in this highly entertaining and multilayered sequel to Discovering Pig Magic (2008). She lives in Alameda, Calif. (a suburb of San Francisco), in a close-knit family whose house is "generally kind of messy, usually loud, and frequently crowded." Ariel is grateful to face the first day of eighth grade with her two best friends, M and Nicki, and her "Too Cool for School Cucumber Salad," but nothing can prepare her for how the day unfolds—at the end of it, M calls sobbing with the news that she and her recovering agoraphobic mother may be moving 360 miles north to Crescent City, Calif. The girls come up with a plan that goes dramatically awry. Crabtree is particularly adept at capturing the emotional life of teens. The ease with which she weaves Ariel's clear (and fabulous) recipes and passion for cooking into this story about how even close friends can change unexpectedly is equally impressive. Though very much a work of fiction, it's also an inspiring introduction into how a young chef thinks, and it does in fact include interesting and helpful cooking tips. Creative and refreshing like a good soufflé, this perceptive, heartfelt narrative nevertheless has real meat on its bones. (recipe index, glossary, selected sources) (Fiction. 10-14)

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