Monday, January 30, 2012

Marvelous MG Monday: Emma on Thin Icing

Today’s pick:  Emma on Thin Icing (Cupcake Diaries #3) by Coco Simon

Published by Simon Spotlight, 2011

Summary:
Emma is invited to be a bridesmaid in her friend Mia’s mother’s wedding. The problem is, Emma isn’t sure she can afford to buy the dress. She doesn’t want to ask her parents, since they are having enough problems with her Mom losing her job. So Emma tries to manage earning the extra money on her own, by trying to fit babysitting her brother, dog-walking, and more business (extra baking) for the Cupcake Club into her already busy schedule of school and flute lessons. Can she handle the stress?

My Take:  
This book caught my attention because I love baking and eating cupcakes! It was an easy and fun book to read, with believable situations and characters. I think 8 to 12-year-old girls would really enjoy this. Emma’s problems were easy to relate to and the baking details made me hungry! From a writing perspective, I’d look at more books in this series if I wanted to write a contemporary series for girls or a model for how to craft a basic plot with increasing complications. It’s interesting to see how to handle conversations with a group of characters at once, since that can be challenging to write.

Other Info:
In the Cupcake Diaries series, four girls in middle school have small business making cupcakes, and each of the different books is told from a different character’s perspective. Although “Coco Simon” is named as the author on the Simon and Schuster website, it’s not clear whether she is a real person.

Other books by this author include:
Katie and the Cupcake War (August 2012)
Alexis, Cool as a Cupcake (June 2012)
Emma, All Stirred Up (April 2012)
Mia, Baker’s Dozen (February 2012)
Katie, Batter Up (December 2011)
Alexis and the Perfect Recipe (October 2011)
Emma on Thin Icing (August 2011)
Mia in the Mix (May 2011)
Katie and the Cupcake Cure (May 2011)


9 comments:

  1. THIS is the author my god-daughter was talking about. She's 10 and she loves these books! It's good to know that there are more coming out. :)

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  2. Wow, an entire series on cupcakes. You just never know what the next big hit will be. But I'd guess the cupcake market is now saturated, what with books by Lisa Schroeder and Joan Bauer, etc.

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  3. I do love these, and agree that Coco Simon might not be a real person. I've liked all the volumes (1-4) so far, and they are very evenly written if there are multiple authors!

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  4. Ooh, new books to check out! I hadn't heard of these, so thanks for the great review. This reminds me of Meg Cabot's Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls series, which I loved. I'll have to read these!1

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  5. I like the idea that each book has a different girl's perspective. And the mystery behind Coco Simon is interesting too.

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  6. Thanks for the review, Andrea. I'm interested in your comment about this being a good choice to model for learning to craft basic plot with increasing complications. How long are these books? 80 pages or 180? Thanks!

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    1. Sorry, Susanna, not sure. I returned it to the library already. If I had to guess, I'd say 180.

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  7. I will be checking these out! Was not familiar with them. Glad you highlighted!

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  8. My Lauren would love these. I haven't seen them. Thanks for the rec.

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