Guy Friday- Eli Over Easy, The Vaquita

Stamper, Phil. Eli Over Easy
October 3, 2023 by HarperCollins

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Eli's family had  moved to New York City from their home in Minnesota, where his cousin Riley still lives. Eli's mother, a chef, had gotten a job in a prestigious test kitchen and loved the work, but unfortunately passed away from COVID. His father is trying to hold things together, but managing Eli's online schooling as well as his own job stressed him out. He's very cautious about everything that Eli does, so doesn't want him leaving the apartment during the summer. A neighbor, Mrs. Martinez, checks up on him. Eli is taking a coding class, and he is very excited about that, but living in a city like New York without seeing the sites seems pointless. He's also very tired of microwave pizza rolls and take out food; after all, his mother was a chef. He's been using his mother's old computer for school work, and when he is working on a coding assignment, he finds a video of his mother. She was pretending to have a cooking school, and starts with a video about eggs over easy, something she had always intended to teach Eli but never did. Even though he is going against his father's wishes, Eli goes to the market to get ingredients and attempts to cook. It doesn't end well, and sets off the smoke alarm. Mrs. Martinez sends her grandson, Mat, over to check. Mat's parents are separated, so he's spending the summer with his grandmother to help her out, although she is in even better shape than Mat is! Mat agrees to help Eli out, and the two become friends. Eli manages to hide the cooking from his father, who is still very harried and still does not want to talk about Eli's mother. Eli does have some support from Riley, who Facestimes him frequently and is supportive of his endeavors, the way he is supportive of her livestreaming video games. (She has quite the following and hopes to make this a career.) Eli has also been in grief counseling, but is no longer going. The more Eli cooks, the more connected he feels to his mother, but this is somehow concerning. Even his father picks up on it. When Eli decides to construct a chocolate chip cookie app for his coding class project, he enlists Mat's help, and the two become even closer. The project doesn't go as expected, but there are additional wrinkles; not only is Eli's father thinking of getting another job and moving back to Minnesota, but it looks like Mat will be moving away from the city with his mother. The two have just realized that they like each other, but will they be able to be together? And will Eli's attempts at cooking his mother's recipes help both his and his father to process their grief over the loss of Eli's mother?
Strengths: There are not enough middle grade books that show older tweens fending for themselves, and it's something that happens all the time. The balancing act between wanting to do something (anything!) and wanting to listen to parents can be tough, and I'm sure that was even worse with COVID or with living in a city. I appreciated that Eli was safe going out into his neighborhood, but didn't want to tell his dad and have him worry. I also liked that Mrs. Martinez was watching out for him, and his friendship (that turned into a little more) with Mat was great, especially since the two got to have some adventures in the city with Mrs. Martinez, who especially liked to go hang out in the Stonewall area just so she could mention what a great place it was. The cooking is done well, with the failures and successes equally mentioned, and the fact that Eli was trying to make dinners (as well as some really good cookies) will hopefull encourage children to do some safe cooking themselves. Starting with cooking an egg resonated with me especially, since my 88 year old father finally managed (with a lot of support) to cook an egg for the very first time just a few weeks before he died. Everyone needs these skills! Eli's interet in coding is one that I wish would be heralded in more middle grade books, rather the usual interests of baking, journalism, or sports. 
Weaknesses: While Eli's mother is dead, it is at least a driving force in the plot, and has an unfortunate tie to the historic occurrence of the pandemic. A little more information about that, for future generations, might have been helpful. I also wish the cover hadn't looked so sad. There are moments of humor in this that would be easier to sell. 
What I really think: Fans of McDunn's Honestly Elliott and Negron's The Last Super Chef will enjoy the cooking portions of this, and readers who enjoyed the middle grade LGBTQIA+ presentation in Stamper's Small Town Pride or Leali's The Civil War of Amos Abernathy will appreciate that this is a book not about coming out, but about a realistic and middle grade appropriate nascent romance between two boys. 

Smith, Roland. The Vaquita (The Wildes #2)

August 15, 2023 by Sleeping Bear Press

Copy provided by Young Adult Books Central

Having saved their mother from kidnappers in The Amazon, Asia and Ring are back, helping their father plan a conference about the plight of vaquitas in Baja, Mexico. Their mother is still in Brazil reintroducing golden lion tamarinds to the wild, and their father is rushing about trying to get the conference details ready. The children are left with the bumbling Professor Bob, their tutor, but little schooling gets done. Asia assesses the situation and arranges to have the pool filled with water and cleans it. Ring, going into town for food, meets Flaco Mendoza, who  knows their father, and is soon setting off to fish with him, leaving the keys in the vehicle he has taken, and his phone in his back pack, worrying Asia! He does learn a bit about what is stressing the vaquita population, which is crucial, since the animals don't do well in captivity. The Wildes conservation center in Texas is installing marine environments, but Dr. Jack is not necessarily planning on bringing animals back with him due to this fact. The children meet a wide variety of people planning on attending the conference, including workers from Sea World in San Diego, Scott Bendix, a suspicious but gregarious actor, Maxine Green, a journalist, and George Sweeney, from The Animal Protection Army, which is opposed to the Wildes' work. The children do have some allies, including the returning Tom Cotten, the father of Asia's friend Caleb, and Flaco's nephew Carlos. When Asia and Ring find a vaquita mother and her pup tangled in nets, they work with Flaco to save the animals. Will their knowledge of YouTube videos be enough to save the day?

Like the Villalobos family in Melissa Cristina Márquez's Wild Survival books or  Barn Whimbril in Joseph Monninger's Dragged From Under series, Asia and Ring are well-versed in conservation and trying their best to save the local animals wherever their somewhat inept parents have taken them. They manage to do this with very little adult supervision, which made me worry, but will delight younger readers. I appreciated that fact that Smith at least kept them alive!

I thought this would evolve into another mystery, with the introduction of so many interesting and possibly villainous characters, but this book was more centered around saving the vaquitas. It would have been helpful to have a short chapter at the back with information about this increasingly rare and endangered marine animal, since Smith is a fantastic nonfiction science writer who has also published They Are Here: How Invasive Species Are Spoiling Our Ecosystem.

Even in mostly landlocked Ohio, there are many children who are interested in marince ecology. Science teachers will be glad to pick up The Wildes along with Rorby's  How to Speak Dolphin, Henderson's Young Captain Nemo, O'Hearn's Escape from Atlantis,  Rivers's A Possibility of Whales, and McCarthy's  B.E.S.T. World series.