All You Knead Is Love
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4.2 • 5 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Tanya Guerrero's All You Knead Is Love is a contemporary middle grade coming-of-age novel about a twelve-year-old multiracial Filipino and Spanish girl who goes to live with her grandmother for the summer, gaining confidence through a newly discovered passion for baking, perfect for fans of Hello, Universe and Merci Suarez Changes Gears.
Sometimes you find home where you least expect it.
Twelve-year-old Alba doesn't want to live with her estranged grandmother in Barcelona. She wants to stay with her mom, even if that means enduring her dad's cutting comments to them both.
But in her new home, Alba forms a close relationship with her grandmother, gains a supportive father figure and new friends, and even discovers a passion and talent for baking. And through getting to know the city her mother used to call home, Alba starts to understand her mother better—and may just be able to make their family whole again.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Twelve-year-old Alba Green has no interest in leaving New York City to spend the summer in Barcelona with Abuela Lola, whom she hasn't seen in most of a decade. But when her emotionally distant mother sends her off, Alba—who is a quarter Filipino and a quarter Spanish (and presumably half white), and who prefers her short, messy hair and vintage David Bowie tee to more femme-presenting clothes—has no choice but to comply. Initially wary of her grandmother's warmth, Alba slowly begins to trust, learning how to bake bread from her mother's dearest childhood friend, Toni, and finding out about her mother's life before Alba's "controlling, abusive jerk" father demanded that her mother cut ties with her past. Guerrero (How to Make Friends with the Sea) layers her contemporary novel of leavening a life with references to heritage, interweaving Catalan, English, Spanish, and Tagalog with deliciously described dishes and vivid imagery of Barcelona's neighborhoods to reinforce the theme of community's importance. Difficult topics, such as the effects of abuse and child neglect, are handled authentically through the eyes of a preteen girl without belittling the complicated emotional ramifications she experiences in everyday interactions. Back matter provides translations to non-English phrases. Ages 8–12.
Customer Reviews
Love
I feel like this book is very relatable, but even if it isn’t, Tanya makes it easy to understand Alba’s conflicting emotions.