Bake Believe by Cori Cooper – Review by Maryn Belling

Bake Believe by Cori Cooper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Bake Believe by Cori Cooper – Review by Maryn Belling

Lo que importa es el corazon.

In 1 sentence that’s what grown ups need to know when choosing this series opener for the middle-school readers in their lives. Figuring out your role in the world can be complicated; this is like a more relatable version of Encanto – sorry no arepas recipes 😎 but there IS an awesome family rule: No Gremlin Faces!

I read this book trying to decide whether to give it to my 6th grader sobrina who loves baking & sports. At the outset, I wasn’t sure if the “cute boys” elements were going to be age appropriate for her, but the family, baking, and recipes definitely are. I’ll still leave it up to my comadre whether or not this series is okay “from Nina” or if it’s gotta wait til 8th grade. What’s really cool especially for my sobrina is that the author was raised in Arizona.

Also the author has the best descriptions – both for moms AND middle schoolers!

“From the look on my mom’s face, a person would think I just told her I stole an endangered monkey from the zoo and turned it into a robot, obsessed with eighties music.”
Who doesn’t know THAT look from her mom 😹😎

If you’re giving these to a middle schooler with younger siblings, add on Pete the Cat & the Missing Cupcakes for preschoolers or Mrs. Pigglewiggle vintage stories for grade-schoolers.

(Also for funsies, I watched Junior Bake-off on Netflix while I was preparing to read these so I was already thinking youthful happiness)

Bake Believe, Cori Cooper, Review, Itsy Bitsy Book Bits, YA

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