Book Review: Pie by Sarah Weeks

If you made the best pies in town, would you give them all away? That's what Alice's Aunt Polly does when she opens her pie shop in the small town of Ipswitch, Penn. And when Aunt Polly dies, she leaves her prized pie crust recipe to her cat!

Aunt Polly, also known as "the Pie Queen of Ipswitch," won the coveted Blueberry Award for pie-making a record 13 times. While her aunt was alive, Alice spent all of her free time in the shop, cracking walnuts and crumbling brown sugar. So when Aunt Polly dies, Alice finds herself in possession of her aunt's much loved but very cranky cat, Lardo--heir to the pie crust recipe. Now all of Ipswitch is trying to find Aunt Polly's recipe in order to become the next Blueberry Award winner. But without a decent piecrust, can anyone in town take home the prize? Bad pies are cooling on every windowsill. When Lardo disappears and the pie shop is ransacked, Alice and her new friend, Charlie, begin investigating the crimes.

In this gentle mystery, false trails and zaniness abound, and friendship and family rule the day. Aunt Polly lives on through her pies, and her wonderful pie recipes (included in the story). Alice puts it best when she sings, "A cat, a key, a clink, a clue,/ a chocolate pie, a friend that's true,/ A mystery that is finally through,/ And now a happy ending, too." This reader will begin by baking the delicious-sounding Lemon Chess Pie, from page 102. --Lynn Becker, host of the monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI, Book Talk. First appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers 10/28/11, reprinted with permission.

Discover: A charming middle-grade mystery that stresses the importance of friendship, family and the goodness of pies.

Lynn Becker

www.lynnbeckerbooks.com

 

Writing Exercise Wednesday #33

Prompt:

Swimming pond and summer.  Go to it and make it mysterious.

Result:

     Down at the old mill was a swimming pond. All summer me and Hank and Bethany turned into fish. The rope Father hung was well worn in and swung like Tarzan’s vines. It never mattered how hot we were or how cold the pond was – we’d jump anyhow.

     The summer Old Man Hooper died was the last summer Hank and Bethany and me were fish. Watching the rope being cut down made my heart ache. Bethany cried. I’m not sure who she was crying for: herself or Old Man Hooper. But ever since that day, anytime we’re around the adults, we only whisper his name.

Writing Exercise Wednesday #26

I am half way through this experimental year of writing exercises.  That's a lot.  But it's always fun.
There are so many great events coming up the rest of this year.  I'm looking forward to the SCBWI National Conference in August.  I am hosting my first event as SB County Coordinator on Sept 29 with Mary Hershey as the instructor.  That workshop looks so amazing, I can't wait.
So here is the exercise for today.  Enjoy!

WEW #26

Prompt: oak, pure, mist, weepy, mod 

Result:

Shadowed in the mist, deep in the bogs of Louisiana, lived an old, old oak tree.  Not the usual place to find one, which made it all the more special.  People came from as far as Montana to witness the weepy leaves and the massive trunk. 

In the middle of the serrated bark was a hole.  Locals knew.  Which is how the legend grew that you could ask the pure oak any question and receive the answer to that question.

People would write in a frenzy and pop it in the hole and come back the next day and there their answer would be waiting.

Some called it a miracle; some thought it a mod way to talk to God.  But little Penelope “Peppermint Stick” Farrow (Pep or Pepper to her friends), knew the truth behind the hole in the oak and who really answered those folks’ questions.