Mimi suffers from youngest child syndrome--one big sister is a wonderful dancer (modern dance fused with classical Indian dance), one a wildly talented soccer player, and her big brother is great at acting. Mimi's a talented baker, inspired by her Indian-American mother's own cooking, but that seems like small beans compared to the rest of the family talents. The rather depressing summer ahead, with her best friend gone off to Australia, brightens when a new café opens in town, and announces a baking contest for kids, Mimi sets out to win it and show everyone she matters too. But it is a most unusual café, in which there is magic afoot...
The café is not the only odd thing about this summer. Mimi follows snatches of music into the woods near her house, and there she finds Vic, a mysterious boy who shares both her Indian heritage and her interest in cooking. When Vic is in the wood, it becomes a place of strangeness, with wild boars, cobras, and a massive banyan tree. Mimi accepts it unquestioningly, perhaps a bit bemagiced by it, and hopes that Vic can be her best friend for the summer.
First to fall to the magic is Mimi's father, a food critic, who looses all his gastronomic intelligence and starts eating with insane voraciousness after trying a chocolate from the café. Then Mimi and Vic start experimenting with the alleged properties of herbs to affect moods...and mayhem breaks out when one of her sisters is besieged by two love-sick swains.
Mimi has to figure out how to undo the magic, and win the baking contest, and both are rather touch and go. Because Mrs. T., the cafe's proprietress, is none other than Titania, queen of the fairies, and what she wants is usually what she gets. And this summer, she wants Mimi....
Mimi's challenges, both the real world baking and the magical baking tensions (especially the curse on her father), are sufficient to keep the plot gripping, especially for young foodies! But we never lose sight of Mimi the person, dealing with her family, and with very relatable anxieties and insecurities, and emerging a more confident person.
It's one that I can imagine being loved both by fans of realistic family and friend stories and by those who crave magic intruding into the real world. I know Shakespeare's play pretty well, and so I had the great enjoyment of seeing it reworked in a real world setting, but I think it would work just fine for kids who don't know the original.
Basically, if you love the cover (and what's not to love!) you'll love the book.
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