MMGM- This is How I Roll and Very Asian

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Marvelous Middle Grade Monday
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Always in the Middle 

and #IMWAYR day 

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Teach Mentor Texts 

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Unleashing Readers

Florence, Debbi Michiko. This is How I Roll

January 3, 2023 by Scholastic Inc.

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Sana (Susanna) Mikami moves from the city with her parents when her father's sushi restaurant starts to become very popular. Piper Bay, where her uncle and cousin Charli live, is okay, and Sana is not overly concerned about making friends. Her mother isn't working long hours for a big hotel any more. For the summer, Sana is hanging out with Charli, who loves crafts as much as Sana likes to cook. Sana's dad, however, doesn't seem thrilled that she wants to take after him, and after a disastrous experience in the kitchen, seems determined to keep her from being in the kitchen with him. He's especially busy, since he is being filmed for a documentary. When Sana pops by the restaurant, she meets Koji Yamada, a boy working for the landscaping business that keeps up the restaurant's yard. Charli says that Koji is bad news, and that he was expelled after hitting a friend of hers, but Sana thinks he is cute and nice. He takes her home to meet his mother, and she and Sana start to cook together. Koji's older sister makes a comment about Mikami Sushi, saying that the restaurant was why her mother lost her job, because Sana's father's place made the other business close. Sana doesn't want to stop her cooking lessons with Koji's mother, so keeps her identity secret. This is a little harder, since Koji has made a couple of cooking videos with Sana making kawaii sushi in the shape of penguins and other animals. Even though he has the videos set to private and only shows Sana's hands, she's concerned that her parents will find out and make her stop cooking. Charli gets into an arts summer camp at the last minute, so Sana has more time to spend with Koji. This is great, but his best friend Harley feels threatened. Sana's mother is busy renovating their rental home, and her father works long hours at the restaurant, so Sana has plenty of time to spend cooking and hanging out with Koji. When Harley tells Koji about Sana's identity, will she be able to keep up with these fun summer activities?

Strengths: This was a delightful, light romance with lots of cooking. There aren't enough novels that delve into what tweens do in the summer, and Piper Bay was a fun setting for Sana's exploits. There's just enough tension with her parents, there's a lot of food that is described, and there's even a little bit of social media exploration. Sana also has friends in the city who text message her, which seems a very realistic way of dealing with friends after a move; it's so much easier that writing letters! Koji is a nice guy, but Charli imbues him with just a tiny  bit of bad boy reputation that he doesn't really merit. Like this author's Sweet and Sour, this combined family drama, friend drama, and romance and served it all up in a great Bento box of a story. I love the cover as well. 
Weaknesses: Some people won't be happy that Sana lies to her parents, but since she's lying about hanging out with a boy's mother, it seems pretty innocuous to me. This is absolutely on point with how tweens interact with their parents. Sana is very concerned about safety, but she just doesn't want to let her parents in on what she is doing quite yet. 
What I really think: The WISH novels are super popular in my library, and I would have loved these when I was in middle school. I went through a candy making phase in middle school; I think adults forget how much fun cooking is when you don't have to do it every  night! I'll be looking forward to more light romances like Just Be Cool, Jenna Sakai and Keep it Together, Keiko Carter from Florence! 

Li, Michelle and Choi, Sunnu Rebecca (illus.) 

A Very Asian Guide to Korean Food
Published October 22nd 2022 by Gloo Books

Copy provided by the author

This picture book isn't a cookbook, but rather an introduction to Korean dishes meant to introduce the different types of traditional meals. Each two page spread starts with "Very"... shareable, slippery, colorful, etc., and then explains what the food consists of, how is it prepared, and the occasions when it is served. Some of the dishes, like kimchi, have been around for hundreds of years, while others, like Korean corn dogs, utilize more modern foods and put a Korean twist on them. While most are main dishes, like bibimbap, tteobokki, or Korean Fried Chicken, there are even a couple of desserts. 

The illustrations are full of bright colors and wonderful details of the food; this book made me hungry! Young readers will gain a better understanding of what Korean food is like, so if they get an opportunity to eat it, or see a classmate with one of the dishes in their lunch box, it won't seem so unusual. 

There is one recipe in the back, for mandu (dumplings), but this book is more about the experience of Korean food and the ingredients that make up the delicious looking dishes. As one of the blurbs on the back states "Forget 'stinky lunchbox' moments." This is a great book for broadening the food horizons of readers whose milieu is more mac and cheese than bulgogi. I'd love to see similar books about other food traditions!

I like to read cookbooks, but I am not a fan of cooking. When I was looking up this book, I came across Lee's Yummy Kawaii Bento (2015), which looks like something I would read but would never, ever cook from! That's a lot of cutting and molding for something that is just going to be eaten. I was lucky that my children are old enough that I was still able to get away with sending them to school with fat and sugar on carbs. (Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!)