ALL FOUR STARS by Tara Dairman

When Gladys sets her kitchen on fire trying to make creme brulee, her parents discover her secret - when Gladys is home by herself, she cooks! This is unacceptable behavior for a sixth grader in their opinion so they ban her from the kitchen and from reading cookbooks. Instead, they insist she do normal things like play video games or go to the mall.  But a writing assignment for school snags a freelance restaurant critic job for Gladys - if she can just figure out how to pull it off without anyone finding out she's just a kid.

Gladys' passion is obvious and inspiring. Her parents are clueless, but Gladys' friends are supportive and encouraging. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and kept finding passages I wanted to read out loud to students. I think the kids at my school would enjoy Gladys's story!

5 out of 5 stars
No AR reading level at the time of this writing.

FRIDAY: a couple skimmed non-fiction books

  I recently skimmed through these two books from the library. The bread book sounded fantastic, but a little more involved than I care to be right now in my bread-eating life. Maybe when life slows down again - like next summer - I might give a loaf a try.

The Typo Hunt was a fun premise - some friends head around the country fixing grammatical and spelling errors on signs. They even performed their editing service at the Grand Canyon, much to the government's chagrin. My favorite part was when the author highlighted the errors in the government's documentation of the charges against them! 

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THURSDAY: The Art of Eating In

A woman living in New York City decided to forgo all the amazing restaurants in her city and instead eat at home - and she blogs about it.

Now she's written a book about her experience and how it impacted the rest of her life (How do you date when you don't eat out?)

I enjoyed reading about Cathy's journey. She experienced all sorts of interesting things like dumpster diving at stores and restaurants as they throw out things they don't sell, as well as community tours to learn what to eat in the "wilds" of her city. Her particular brand of cookie is a pretty "fussy" for someone like me who doesn't even like to cook the simple things. But reading the book did inspire me to want to eat in more often.

Check out The Art of Eating In. 

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