Cupcakes & Camp (Mia in the Middle #1)
March 17, 2026 by Simon Spotlight
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
Mia, one of the main characters in The Cupcake Diaries, is devastated that she has to spend time away from Maple Grove and her friends Katie, Lexie, and Emma. Her parents are going to be busy with work, and her stepbrother Dan is not old enough to watch her over the summer. She's whisked off to a camp upstate where she finds to her absolute horror that no phones are allowed and there is an ugly, polyester uniform that she has to wear instead of her fashionable attire! Her mother claims that if she had told Mia about these things, she would have refused to go. Mia is glad to see her best friend from Manhattan, Ava, at the camp, but Ava is standoffish when Mia doesn't remember that Ava was going to attend the camp. There's no soccer, but Mia is put into archery and swimming, since she is athletic. She makes a few friends in the enthusiastic Jade and Sasha, and does have a few opportunities to show off her fashion knowledge. Eventually she and Ava reconcile, and there are more camp adventures planned, with Home is Where the Cupcake Is is due out May 5, 2026.
Strengths: It's always interesting to see tweens being put into new situations where they have to make friends and draw upon their inner resources to navigate life without parents. The camp had the usual outdoor activities, as well as crafts, counselors, and MUCH better sounding food than I got at Camp Kiwatani! There's some light friend drama, and Mia even learns to write letters. Of course, her friends in the Cupcake Club don't write back often, but they do eventually, and assure her that she is missed.
Weaknesses: Obviously, Coco Simon is a pen name, but I wonder if a different writer wrote this book. It seemed different from the original Cupcake Diaries, Sprinkle Sundays or Donut Dreams series. On a practical level, since I have twenty of the Cupcake Diaries books that rarely get read after book five (I really, really liked all of them!), I am reluctant to purchase a new series about the same characters.
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who enjoyed camp stories like Sloan and Wolitzer's To Night Owl from Dogfish, Montague's Camp Frenemies, or Moskowitz-Palma's Camp Clique.
March 17, 2026 by Simon Spotlight
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
Mia, one of the main characters in The Cupcake Diaries, is devastated that she has to spend time away from Maple Grove and her friends Katie, Lexie, and Emma. Her parents are going to be busy with work, and her stepbrother Dan is not old enough to watch her over the summer. She's whisked off to a camp upstate where she finds to her absolute horror that no phones are allowed and there is an ugly, polyester uniform that she has to wear instead of her fashionable attire! Her mother claims that if she had told Mia about these things, she would have refused to go. Mia is glad to see her best friend from Manhattan, Ava, at the camp, but Ava is standoffish when Mia doesn't remember that Ava was going to attend the camp. There's no soccer, but Mia is put into archery and swimming, since she is athletic. She makes a few friends in the enthusiastic Jade and Sasha, and does have a few opportunities to show off her fashion knowledge. Eventually she and Ava reconcile, and there are more camp adventures planned, with Home is Where the Cupcake Is is due out May 5, 2026.
Strengths: It's always interesting to see tweens being put into new situations where they have to make friends and draw upon their inner resources to navigate life without parents. The camp had the usual outdoor activities, as well as crafts, counselors, and MUCH better sounding food than I got at Camp Kiwatani! There's some light friend drama, and Mia even learns to write letters. Of course, her friends in the Cupcake Club don't write back often, but they do eventually, and assure her that she is missed.
Weaknesses: Obviously, Coco Simon is a pen name, but I wonder if a different writer wrote this book. It seemed different from the original Cupcake Diaries, Sprinkle Sundays or Donut Dreams series. On a practical level, since I have twenty of the Cupcake Diaries books that rarely get read after book five (I really, really liked all of them!), I am reluctant to purchase a new series about the same characters.
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who enjoyed camp stories like Sloan and Wolitzer's To Night Owl from Dogfish, Montague's Camp Frenemies, or Moskowitz-Palma's Camp Clique.
Personal thoughts: Would parents really spring summer camp on a child four days before the camp started? Don't kids WANT to go to camp? They are expensive! And not tell them there was no technology? What camp has uniforms? I had a lot of questions, but this might be because the book I wrote in 8th grade was about summer camp!
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
Maple Sanford is sad because it is the last day that her family's restaurant, Dot's Diner, is opened. Her mother has sold it to a developer who is destroying the entire downtown so a new Robotech corporation can go in. Since her beloved grandmother, Dot, started the restaurant in the 1970s, Maple doesn't want it to close. Her older sister, Margaret is realistic, hoping to earn money for college by winning the local beauty pageant. If only there were a way for the family to get money! Enter the legend of Crispy's stolen gold, which leads Maple and her friend Oz to investigate the giant statue of her grandmother. Using clues they find in Dot's cookbook, they find a secret entrance in the heel that takes them into a National Treasure type underground passageway, with puzzles and rooms opened up by Dot's spatula. Margaret is wearing the festival crown for the Haywood Day Parade, and two Mythsonian Museum guards show up in the passages saying they need it back. This seems suspicious, so Maple and her group try to get away. They end up uncovering fifty year old secrets that may save the restaurant.
This was a very different sort of graphic novel. The illustrations had a very Saturday morning cartoon feel to them, and while this is realistic, the very existence of an undergroung passageway seemed unlikely. Sensitive readers should know that there are two skeletons found of people who died in the underground area .This was frenetic, and a bit confusing. Crispy was portrayed in a way that felt very like a 1920s gangster; he was garbed as such, and I was sure the Lucky Cluck was a speakeasy. Since the grandmother had a relationship with him in the 1970s, this seemed odd. Young readers won't mind, and will enjoy the sugary pancake recipes.
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