Sweet Treats & Secret Crushes - Hardcover

Lisa Greenwald is the author of My Life in Pink & Green, which earned a starred review from Kirkus. She works in the library at the Birch Wathen Lenox School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She is a graduate of the New School’s MFA program in writing for children and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Visit her online at www.lisagreenwald.com.

Gr 5-8–As a blizzard bears down on New York City just in time for Valentine's Day, a storm of a different kind is brewing in the apartment building above Chen's Kitchen. Seventh-graders Olivia, Kate, and Georgia are best friends who are struggling to find common ground as their relationship begins to change. Olivia has liked Phillip Becker-Jacobs for two years, and she records everything he does and wears in her Observation Notebook. Kate flits from crush to obsessive crush, and Georgia stays quiet to avoid letting her secrets slip, even to her best friends. An unexpected snow day offers the girls a chance to reconnect by baking “magic” fortune cookies designed to help everyone in their building feel loved. As they deliver the treats, they discover many truths: about boys, parents, and one another. Greenwald's second foray into the drama that is seventh grade delivers more than is implied by its saccharine title. The lives of the well-formed characters come alive against the backdrop of a New York City building where neighbors are strangers. Fortune-cookie fortunes become the plot's catalyst, as chapters alternate among Olivia, Kate, and Georgia, offering readers varied perspectives on the events. This is a title that mothers and daughters can confidently read together without major blushing.–Colleen S. Banick, Tomlinson Middle School, Fairfield, CT. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.