Reviews for Sweet Treats & Secret Crushes

The average rating for Sweet Treats & Secret Crushes based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-02-15 00:00:00 Sam Tai What You Need to Know: • Sweet Treats & Secret Crushes is a terrific and light tween book you can be happy about putting into your daughter's hands. • If you are ok with putting stories about boys and crushes into your middle reader's hands, then this is a great one to start with. Note the girls in this story don't have much interaction with boys, they mostly just talk about them. • While the title might seem otherwise, the main theme here is friendship and girlfriends, not boys. • This is an entertaining story and perfectly timed for Valentine's Day. • Check out the authors website here to learn more about Lisa Greenwald. Sweet Book Summary: The main characters in Sweet Treats & Secret Crushes are three seventh grade girls who have been best friends forever. Georgia is the quiet one, Kate is the loud, somewhat trouble-making one and Olivia is the bookish reporter type, always jotting down her observations in her notebooks. The story is set within the apartment building where the girls live in Brooklyn and it takes place all on one day - Valentine's Day. But this isn't your usual Valentine's Day, this is a snow day. Given that New York City schools almost never close, this is a special event. (Clearly this book was written before this crazy winter (2011) we are experiencing right now here in NY!) The girls are equally excited and disappointed. A snow day is great, but now they won't get an opportunity to see the boys they have crushes on at school. They will have to wait a whole year for another Valentine's opportunity to mingle with them on the most romantic (read: over-hyped) day of the year. Georgia's parents own a restaurant called Chen's Kitchen and it is located on the first floor of the building. The Chens are also disappointed with this snow situation, because Valentine's Day should be one of the biggest days of the year for them, and now that's ruined. The girls make the best of it. Mrs. Chen teaches the girls how to make the homemade fortune cookies that Chen's Kitchen is famous for, and the girls have a ball. While making the cookies Mrs. Chen regales the girls with stories of what the building used to be like - when neighbors knew each other and gathered in the hallways for meals and gossip. The girls cannot even imagine an environment like that. They probably wouldn't have even met each other if they didn't live on the same floor and go to the same school. The girls hatch a plan. They decide to pass the fortune cookies out to all their neighbors as they will most likely be home, everyone is snowed in. The girls hope the friendly gesture and the yummy, slightly magical treats may just bring some of that friendliness back to the building. Kate also heard her crush, Brendan, may be visiting the building! The girls have a long day filled with the angst of seventh grade girl friendships, especially when boys are introduced into those friendships. The author handles this with great care and really respects the age and the dramas that go along with it. Her characters don't really even interact with their crushes, but they sure do talk a lot about them! However, after a long day of meeting all kinds of neighbors, the girls ultimately come to realize how valuable their friendship is and that boys shouldn't take away from that. I love that message! It's a good one for girls heading into this age group. Disney and Nickelodeon, don't do our tweens any favors with their twenty two minute stories. They never fully show the real side of friendships and relationships in their stunted story arcs. This book is a very entertaining read and gives the example of a real friendship, taking it through an authentic story arc with a very satisfying conclusion. The girls ultimately understand and appreciate the value of each other.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-02-13 00:00:00 Donald Thompson This book was just so cute! It's probably aimed at a market a little younger than I usually read, I'd buy this as a gift for girl aged 10-13 years and know they'd love it! However I still thoroughly enjoyed my journey back in time, which this book provided and the memories it evoked. Told from the perspectives of three 13 year old friends, Olivia, Georgia and Kate, Lisa Greenwald captures perfectly the confusion and uncertainty of being on the cusp of Young adulthood, when your not quite there but no longer a child. The girls have grown up on the same floor of a Brooklyn apartment block and been best friends most of their life. However subtle changes are creeping into the dynamics of their relationship and in their own way, each of the girls are struggling to understand why. Kate seems keen on making new and exciting friends, Olivia is boring them all with her constant obsessing about a certain boy and Georgia is finding it increasingly difficult to confide in her friends, especially when the role of peacemaker most often falls on her. I really liked how in alternating chapters we heard from all three of the girls and I could remember vividly feeling a lot of the same feelings myself when my childhood gang started to drift apart. It's a scary age when everything is changing at once and Greenwald completely pins that feeling down. I also loved the underlying theme at the heart of this book. Through the day the girls meet many of the people who've lived alongside them in the building and yet until now never known. There are a lot of individual stories from their neighbours and it's pretty sad but also very true how people live so close without knowing or looking out for each other. Giving out the cookies and seeing snapshots of their neighbours lives, not always pretty, shows the girls about listening and understanding others, and each other. The biggest lesson they learn though is about themselves, feeling confident as they grow individually and their friendship evolves. Sweet Treats and Secret Crushes is a heart-warming tale that will leave you with a smile on your face. Switching narrative between the three girls keeps it fresh and interesting and made it a super quick read which I didn't put down. It's sweet and touching and just the right amount of romantic with it's Valentine's day setting for it's age group. I'd thoroughly recommend it for young girls 10+ or anyone who fancies a nostalgic reminder of their own.