Teen Tuesday and Audiobook Review: The Dos and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar

HC Image: Macmillan Publishers

The Dos and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaidirdar. Read by Priya Ayyar. Unabridged e-audiobook, ~8 hours. Dreamscape Media, June, 2023. (Review of e-audio borrowed from public library.)

Teen Tuesday features an absolutely adorable romance called The Dos and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaidirdar. Seventeen-year-old Shireen Malick was born in Ireland to Bangladeshi parents who immigrated there and opened a donut shop called You Drive Me Glazy. They work hard at the shop and Shireen does not mind helping out as she loves to bake. Business hasn't been so great since there are a lot of donut shops around, including one down the block called The Bakers Dozen. Shireen's parents feud with the Hwangs over recipe stealing, so Shireen and Christine have kept their romance a secret until their recent breakup.

Shireen applied to be a contestant in a brand new baking contest featuring teen bakers, called The Junior Irish Baking Show. Shireen thinks she has as good a chance at winning as anyone and planned on entering. Then Christine asked her not to, saying that she was entering. Both girls hoped the exposure would help their family's business. Of course, both girls are accepted as contestants and of course, the two are paired in the very first bake-off. Of course, there's a cute girl from Dublin named Niamh (pronounce Neev) who seems into Shireen. Or is she? Drama much?

Shireen is out and unapologetically fat. She adores her supportive parents and misses her bff, who is spending the summer in Bangladesh. She also suffers from anxiety, but has methods of coping as she clocks the casual racism, fatphobia and Islamophobia she encounters, especially as she begins to do well on the show. Shireen is an endearing, hilarious narrator who loves a good pun. And the desserts! Yum! If you love to bake or have a sweet tooth, you will enjoy this book. Fun fact: a TMS graduate won a baking show as an eighth grader some years back. The entire school was rooting for her and it was such a treat to receive a sample of her baking.

I always enjoy Ms. Ayyar's performances. She imbued Shireen with zing and sass with a dash of uncertainty. 

Middle Grade Monday: Meant to Be by Jo Knowles

Image: Candlewick Press

Meant to Be by Jo Knowles. 218 p. Candlewick Press, March, 2022. 9781536210323. (Review of finished copy courtesy of publisher.

Happy Monday! I hope you had a terrific weekend. I had hoped to get more yard work done, but the weather did not cooperate. Sunday was so cold and moist and raw. I didn't come close to closing my rings. I didn't get much indoor work done either, but I did take a nice nap in the late morning, thanks to rising at 4AM after a terrible night's sleep.

Middle Grade Monday wishes a belated book birthday to Meant to Be by Jo Knowles. This is a companion novel to Where the Heart Is, which was published in 2019. Ivy and her family have moved to an apartment called Applewood Heights and everyone hates it but her. Sure she has to share a tiny bedroom with her older sister, Rachel, but she has friends she can visit easily at last. And they love the show, Make It to Bake It as much as she does! Each week the three gather at Lucas' apartment to watch the show with his dad, who uses a walker and has mobility issues. Then, they figure out how to make the dish with less expensive ingredients, since most of the residents of the building don't have a lot of extra cash. The trio usually find a work-around and they share their creation with whatever resident contributed ingredients. She also loves to visit Donnalyn, the building's super, who lets Ivy really help with real tools. Ivy is happy, except she'd really like to know more about Alice's missing mother and she wants to build Lucas' father a wheelchair, but he's not interested. Her insistence on helping her friends leads to alienation instead, and Ivy has some difficult lessons to learn about being a good friend.

This is a sweet, gentle coming-of-age story centered around family and friendship. Fans of Where the Heart Is will be thrilled that Ivy got her own book, but it Meant to Be stands alone nicely. It's the perfect tween novel featuring an imperfect yet endearing main character readers will root for. 

Middle Grade Monday: President of the Whole Fifth Grade by Sherri Winston

Image: Hachette Book Group

President of the Whole Fifth Grade by Sherri Winston. Unabridged e-audiobook, ~5 hours, 18 minutes. Read by Joniece Abbott-Pratt. Tantor Media, September, 2020. 9781705251638. (Review of e-audio borrowed from public library.)

Middle Grade Monday features President of the Whole Fifth Grade by Sherri Winston. Brianna Justice has life goals. She intends on building a cupcake empire and becoming rich, but first, she needs to become president of her fifth grade class. Why? Her idol, baking celebrity, Miss Delicious credits becoming president of her own fifth grade as the secret to her success. Since Miss Delicious attended the very same school as Brianna, well, it's just meant to be! With the help of her two best friends, Brianna just knows the path to her presidency will be easy. Her plans are foiled when new girl, Jasmine Moon decides to run and seems to have some underhanded tricks up her sleeve.

I found this older title while browsing for a new audiobook in the Libby app. The story is humorous and the fifth grade drama is fairly realistic. Brianna lets her ambition get in the way of her friendship and not only makes some questionable choices, but becomes downright unlikable. Readers who enjoy school and friendship stories will enjoy this book.

Middle Grade Monday and Audiobook Review: Pie in the Sky by Remy Lau

Pie in the Sky by Remy Lau. Unabridged e-audiobook. ~6 hours, 20 minutes. Read by Remy His. Listening Library, 2019. 9780593208434. (Review of e-audiobook downloaded from the public library. Own the hc.)

Middle Grade Monday features a book that a colleague and several students recommended to me. Pie in the Sky by Remy Lau is a hybrid novel, meaning that it's part graphic novel and part prose. Eleven-year-old Jingwen's father's dream was to move to Australia and open a bakery called Pie in the Sky. Jingwen is moving to Australia, but without his dad, because he died. He feels like he might as well be on Mars because everything is alien to him, especially English. He feels stupid and lonely and has to watch his irritating little brother, Yanghao, every day after school. Yanghao seems happy with the move and is picking up English quickly. Jingwen decides to bake every cake that his father planned on selling in Pie in the Sky. The problem? His mama has forbidden the boys from using the stove! Although this is a sad story about a boy who is grieving his father, there are moments of hilarity as the boys set about baking each cake.

The audiobook was very well-done, substituting garbled audio for the "Martian" speech bubbles that appear in the text.