In a magical world where everyone has a Talent, eleven-year-old Cady is an orphan with a phenomenal Talent for cake baking. But little does she know that Fate has set her on a journey from the moment she was born. And her destiny leads her to a mysterious address that houses a lost luggage emporium, an old recipe, a peanut butter factory, a family of children searching for their own Talents, and a Talent thief who could alter her life forever.

So I should probably work on not judging books by their covers so much, but if it keeps working out for me like it has been, maybe I’ll just roll with it… This was a cute little book that I read recently, and I really liked the idea that everyone is exceptional at something, even if it’s just something considered to be useless, like playing jacks or tying knots. (hint hint) PLUS there’s all these cake recipes inside the book at the beginning of some of the chapters, which I LOVE because I love to bake, and I can’t wait to try out some of the recipes to see how they go. Sorry I’ve been gone recently, by the way. School is getting a little bit crazy right now, but I’ll try to post an MMGM as often as possible. SO:

Things I Didn’t Like About It:

1. There was this mysterious character that you never really learned much about and he’s just sort of there and that seemed kinda weird to me.
2. There were a looooot of characters to keep straight.
3. There’s no sequel to tie up the loose ends.

Things I Did Like About It:

1. The cover
2. The Recipes
3. The main character
4. The world building/overall world idea of ‘talents’

Turns out Lisa Graff is a pretty well known Middle Grade author. Any others of her books that you guys recommend? Happy Easter!

Ah, a beautiful cover, isn’t it? So sorry I’ve been gone the past couple of weeks, I’ve just been soooo busy. Hopefully I’ll be better about updating for the next few weeks. Anyways, I saw this movie finally, and it was AMAZING, and my mom found this book, and I thought it sounded really interesting. Here’s the description:

An original addition to the beloved Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, Lost in a Book follows the lonely, bookish Belle as she finds an enchanted book in the Beast’s library called Nevermore that carries her into a glittering new world. There, Belle is befriended by a mysterious countess who offers her the life she’s always dreamed of.

This deluxe hardcover novel expands upon the beautiful story and world seen in the new Walt Disney Studios’ film, Beauty and the Beast.

Obviously, they had to skip over a lot of what happened at the castle in the movie, because it would’ve taken ages to go over all of that. I think it’s really cool that someone thought about what could have happened at an enchanted castle with a curious, brave, young, book-loving girl, and put it into words! The only downside was that the author was trying a bit to make it easier for younger readers to understand, so it comes across a little cheesily childish at some points, but mostly it’s a good balance.

Also, this book now has me wanting a book of the whole story! Books are just so much better than movies for the most part, because no matter how good the actor, you still don’t really know what the character is thinking, or experience the story quite the way it was intended to be experienced, without reading it off a page.

Not that I don’t love movies, too of course. This weekend I watched ‘She’s the Man’ with my brother. What are some of your favorite movies turned into books, or books turned into movies?

Have a great week! 🙂