Lillie's book review: My Chocolate Year

LIllie would like to do a book review on a YA book, entitled My Chocolate Year, by Charlotte Herman, illutrated by LeUyen Pham. We just finished reading it! Here she goes...

This book is about a girl in the 5th grade in Chicago, after WWII.  Her name is Dorrie.  She loves chocolate. In her class, they have a contest called Sweet Semester, in which they have to make a dessert and write an essay about it. The teacher says that Sweet Semester is coming up, so you all have to bring in treats, and raise money for people that need food. And the winner will be in the newspaper.   Dorrie loves chocolate. All year, she tries different recipes. The problem is, she always gets them WRONG!! It is very crazy.  Here is a dessert (DON'T TRY IT)...chocolate covered bubblegum. Don't even try it. The gum melts into the chocolate and she put it in the trashcan.

Her gramma Bubbie says "hoo ha" when she's happy. That made me laugh! Her family went to New York to see the Statue of Liberty.  I learned a lot about things after the war, like magazines and movies, and foods that they ate (cooking with spry instead of butter), and some Jewish holidays.  Her mom made her a dress with puffy sleeves, but she doesn't like puffy sleeves, for her aunt's wedding.

She did have some good recipes that we want to make - cake, and cookies, and we've already made her chocolate malt. 

Her cousin Victor comes from a DP camp - the only one left of their European family.  He brings a recipe from his family's bakery in Europe, called Peppermint Chocolate Sticks. Dorrie makes this for the contest, and wins the essay part. The dessert was yummy, but her essay about family and Victor's story of escaping the Nazis was very powerful - he had to eat dirt and hide in barns every day.

We didn't make all the recipes yet.

Hot Fudge Sundae, chocolate pudding, chocolate malt (it was good!), chocolate egg cream (sounds nasty), chocolate brownies, chocolate mandel bread, chocolate nut clusters, chocolate rapture cake, and  chocolate caramel apples.

I liked this book because it has a cover with a chocolate cupcake on it. It looks good. How to make a cupcake: Make cake batter and put it in cupcake pans. Then put frosting on top.  I also liked this book because the girl was very funny, like when she didn't want puffy sleeves and she wanted to go home right then. I liked the recipes, and how she always made the recipes turn out wrong.  I hope you read it!


I learned to kayak by myself this weekend!