Karen's Cooking Contest

Baby-Sitters Little Sister #93

by Ann M. Martin, Susan Tang (Illustrator)

From the bestselling author of the generation-defining series The Baby-sitters Club comes a series for a new generation!

What’s cooking?Karen’s class is making a cookbook. Karen and her friends asked celebrities to send in recipes. But nobody has sent Karen any recipies. Boo! Karen knows a very special recipe. But it belongs to Nannie and it is supposed to be secret. What will Karen do?

Genres: Childrens, Middle Grade, Collections, Fiction

78 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Ann Matthews Martin was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane. After graduating from Smith College, Ann became a teacher and then an editor of children's books. She's now a full-time writer.

Ann gets the ideas for her books from many different places. Some are based on personal experiences, while others are based on childhood memories and feelings. Many are written about contemporary problems or events. All of Ann's characters, even the members of the Baby-sitters Club, are made up. But many of her characters are based on real people. Sometimes Ann names her characters after people she knows, and other times she simply chooses names that she likes.

Ann has always enjoyed writing. Even before she was old enough to write, she would dictate stories to her mother to write down for her. Some of her favorite authors at that time were Lewis Carroll, P. L. Travers, Hugh Lofting, Astrid Lindgren, and Roald Dahl. They inspired her to become a writer herself.

Since ending the BSC series in 2000, Ann’s writing has concentrated on single novels, many of which are set in the 1960s.

After living in New York City for many years, Ann moved to the Hudson Valley in upstate New York where she now lives with her dog, Sadie, and her cats, Gussie, Willy and Woody. Her hobbies are reading, sewing, and needlework. Her favorite thing to do is to make clothes for children.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/annmma...

Reviews

[Jennifer]

Sometimes I get angry at Karen.

Then I remember she's seven.

And fictional.

In these books, more often then not, there's something you can point to and say "there, that's what made Karen do *plot of book*". Sometimes its bad parenting, sometimes it's Karen's hyperness, sometimes it's because of her age, etc, etc.

This time it's a mix. Firstly Karen should have known better than to steal a secret recipe. She knows it's wrong. Of course if Ms Colman had sent a note home explaining about the cook book or if her parents had taken an interest it wouldn't have gone so far.

(This actually happens in the book;

"I've decided what recipe I'm going to submit for the cook book!"
"That's nice, dear."

And then they move onto to talking about something else. No one in that huge family bothers to ask her what recipe she's going to enter.)

[Jaclyn]

Just like when Karen loses the ring Watson gave Kristy, this book shows Karen hurting someone who cares for her simply because of selfish reasons.

In this case, Karen is helping Nannie at a series of baking competitions with Nannie's original recipe for chocolate dip, Chocolate Magic. Nannie wants to keep the recipe secret, but Karen gets FOMO when her class collects recipes from celebrities for a cookbook to raise funds for the school library, and Karen's the only one whose celebrities never responded with recipes. So Karen steals Nannie's recipe and adds it to the book without telling Nannie. Nannie finds out (fortunately the day before the book goes on sale) and is understandably hurt and betrayed. Boo Karen, and it's only forgivable coz she's a 7 year old kid.

Nannie tells Karen not to come with her for the final baking competition coz she can no longer trust her, and HAH! serves her right!

But all ends well. Karen fesses up to Ms Colman who says the book has gone to print but Karen can rip out the page with Nannie's recipe and cross out all mention of it on the table of contents and index. Which is more than fair and a good gesture on Karen's part. So good on Karen. Plus Nannie donates another (non-secret) recipe for the second printing of the cookbook, so Karen gets a recipe in the book after all. So good on Nannie. Plus plus Nannie's chocolate magic wins the grand prize and she decides to start her own chocolates business with the recipe! That to me is the best part of all this. Go Nannie!

[Looney]

2.5/5

[Em's Adventures]

Karen's in trouble again!

[Annora]

I understand that Karen is just a child, and we’re seeing the world through her eyes. She’s seven. She acts like a kid.

However, it’s so rare for the result to to through with her punishments and in the end, things always go how she wanted them to.

[Miri]

Karen's class is making a celebrity cookbook, they write to celebrities for their favorite recipes, but Karen doesn't receive any replies at all, so she takes Nanny's prize winning recipe without asking. When Nanny finds out, she's really upset, what can Karen do to make up for this mistake?

[Sandi T.]

Was about to donate this book when I decided to give it a quick read. I remember looking for all the BSLS's books I could find in bookstores when I was in grade school. :)

[Mellanie C]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14597652