Sunday, 21 October 2012

The Cupcake Diaries: Katie, Batter Up! By Coco Simon (Children's, 7 years +, 10/10)



September 2012, Simon and Schuster
160 pages, Ebook (also in paperback)
Personal copy

Themes: cupcakes, support of friends, figuring out your talent, bullying at school, feeling down and not special, different types of sport at school, team work, turning to family for support, lota of laughs, tissues most definitely needed

Summary from Simon and Schuster

Katie's Cupcake Club friends all have other activities besides making cupcakes. Mia and Alexis are on the football team and Emma plays the flute. Katie sets out to find her extracurricular niche and soon she's dribbling, passing and catching in an effort to find the right sport for her. Sure Katie can whip up a great cupcake but can she cook on the field too? When Katie tries out and makes the softball team it's batter up…but instead of swinging away she gets nervous during games. What if she makes a mistake? What if they lose? Is this the kind of batter Katie really wants to be dealing with? Katie starts to figure out that doing what you love always makes the batter sweeter.

Nayuleska's thoughts
As ever the cover is rather funky (Not that I see it in all its glory on my ebook reader), which is an accurate depiction of Katie's story. I hated how Sydney taunted her and made her feel useless. It's dispiriting enough when you aren't good at something that most other people can do. Having someone constantly highlight the issue is rough. I liked the positiv family vibes in the book, how close Katie was with her family, the pet names they used and particularlt how they sensed something was wrong. I cried at several points in the book because those parts were rather heartwarming. This entire 10/10 read is inspiring - and will probably make your wish to eat cupcakes grow!

Suggested read
Be sure to read all the books in the series which start with The Cupcake Diaries: Katy and the Cupcake Cure


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