Bliss [Hardcover]

Kathryn Littlewood (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 14, 2012 | Age Range: 8 and up | Series: Bliss | Lexile Measure: 870L (What's this?)

Rosemary Bliss’s family has a secret. It’s the Bliss Cookery Booke—an ancient, leather-bound volume of enchanted recipes like Stone Sleep Snickerdoodles and Singing Gingersnaps. Rose and her siblings are supposed to keep the Cookery Booke under lock and whisk-shaped key while their parents are out of town, but then a mysterious stranger shows up. “Aunt” Lily rides a motorcycle, wears purple sequins, and whips up exotic (but delicious) dishes for dinner. Soon boring, nonmagical recipes feel like life before Aunt Lily—a lot less fun.

So Rose and her siblings experi-ment with just a couple of recipes from the forbidden Cookery Booke.

A few Love Muffins and a few dozen Cookies of Truth couldn’t cause too much trouble . . . could they?

Kathryn Littlewood’s culinary caper blends rich emotional flavor with truly magical wit, yielding one heaping portion of hilarious family adventure.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Quite delicious and very funny.” (Wall Street Journal )

“Middle-grade readers who enjoy slapstick humor and fantastical adventures will get a generous helping of each here in what amounts to an impressive debut.” (Boston Globe )

“The children’s attempts at magic and the subsequent flubs simply make this cannot-put-it-down delectable.” (Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) )

“Delicious and exciting.” (Washington Post )

“A heroine with baking in her blood and a zany plot liberally sprinkled with humor blend into fun family adventure. Lighthearted bliss.” (Kirkus Reviews )

“Littlewood’s first novel mixes the sincere and the silly with entertaining results.” (Publishers Weekly )

“Humor abounds in this sweet story that stresses the importance of family, and readers will enjoy getting to know the eccentric Bliss family. ” (School Library Journal )

“This sweet (but never syrupy) story has surprising substance and broad appeal. A humorous tone, clear, thoughtful writing, and a brisk pace will also ensure that this one is gobbled up quickly.” (Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books )

About the Author

Kathryn Littlewood is a writer, actress, comedienne, and bon vivant who lives in New York City, works often in Los Angeles, and has a sweet tooth for pain au chocolat and sweet novels for middle-grade readers. This, her second novel, is a sequel to her first, Bliss.

Product Details

• Age Range: 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books (February 14, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062084232
• ISBN-13: 978-0062084231
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (89 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #178,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kathryn Littlewood is a writer, actress, comedienne, and bon vivant who lives in New York City, works often in Los Angeles, and has a sweet tooth for pain de chocolat and sweet novels for tween readers.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars not as good as I was hoping August 29, 2012

By Tabitha VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I love baking, so I was really looking forward to this story. It was cute enough, I suppose. Rosemary's insecurities definitely felt real and believable, and they explained her naiveté and poor choices. Though some of the issues she overlooked felt contrived (like the tart and the key at the end), so that was disappointing.

I also could not get over some of the plot points of the story--it takes much more than an hour or so to prep a bakery for the day, and bakeries open *much* earlier than 8:30am (because everyone is at work by then). So those running a bakery often have to start preparing well before the sun comes up. I also did not buy it that Rose wouldn't have a way of getting in touch with her parents immediately (they were in another town baking, where there's plenty of phones and cell coverage). The logical part of my brain kept kicking in and pointing out these inconsistencies, keeping me from enjoying the story.

My eight year old son read this book and said that it doesn't really `get good' until the halfway mark. I have to agree. Not much happens in the first half, but once Rose and her brothers break out the cookery booke it gets more interesting. My son found it funnier than I did because the humor is definitely geared toward a younger audience.

In the end, though, neither my son nor I were interested enough to seek out the next book when it comes out.

Age appropriateness: there are no incredibly tense moments, so I think this book would appeal to grade-schoolers who have advanced reading skills.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Long, slow, an obvious plot, and a remarkably disappointing ending October 10, 2012

By R. Whitlock

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I just finished reading this to my children and was so disappointed I felt compelled to write a review for other parents contemplating this book.

The plot is obvious. It is, as another reviewer noted, the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Magician parents go away and kids wreak havoc messing around with magic in the absence. At 384 pages, the development for such an obvious plot line is slow and plodding. Is the lead character, Rose, endearing or sympathetic? Not really. There are certainly points that are hilarious, and my kids laughed uproariously. But they seemed infrequent during the many nights of reading.

Of course I won't give away the ending. What I will say is Chapter 18, the final chapter, swings wildly in tone from moment to moment. It swings from high tension to relief and humor back to high tension bordering on terror and then a flat, almost 'oh well' ending. The radical shifts in tone were jarring, and to my mind, incredibly unsatisfying. On top of all that, there was a critical plot point left unresolved and lingering like the Empire Strikes Back. I'll admit I could be conditioned for children's book to have satisfying, clearly resolved endings.

Upon finishing the last line, my nine and seven-year old looked at me and said in unison, "That's the end? Really?" Maybe the requisite sequel will be redeeming, but my two cents is that there is a high probability you will be disappointed with Bliss.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Not really feeling the magic November 3, 2012

By Bookphile TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

When I read the premise of Bliss, I was very intrigued. It sounded like such a fun idea: would the temptations of her family's magical bakery prove too much for young Rose Bliss? My daughter and I read the book over the course of several months and, though reading it in short chunks didn't help, it never really captured me the way I might have thought. Minor spoilers to follow.

I think the biggest problem with this book is it's far too wordy. It felt to me like there was a lot of filler that could have been trimmed, which would have made it a tighter, more compelling story. Since it's middle grade, I found it kind of odd that it delved into minutiae that struck me as the sort of details only adults might fully be able to appreciate. I know a lot of these things went straight over my daughter's head.

What I did like about the novel was Rose. I'm sure most kids can identify with feeling a little invisible at times. The book has some good things to say about the way people tend to fills the roles they're assigned. Rose is seen as the mature, responsible one, and she is, but she chafes under the weight of those expectations. She's likable and sympathetic, yet flawed in a way that makes her seem entirely real. Why wouldn't she find it hard to refuse someone who makes me feel like she exists? I really enjoyed her and thought her character was deftly handled.

Another strong point was Rose's relationship with Aunt Lily. Littlewood isn't heavy-handed about presenting Aunt Lily in a very self-serving way, but my daughter picked up on the subtext. We talked a lot about Aunt Lily and whether Rose really saw Lily as she actually was. I liked that she and I were able to dive into a pretty deep analysis of the book, yet in a way that clearly caught my daughter's interest instead of giving her the impression that we were having a literary lecture.

Still, there's just something so flat about this book. The recipes are interesting and the little stories accompanying them are fun, but they just never seemed to live up to their potential. Littlewood has something to say about the burdens of having special abilities and whether or not it's always a good idea to use them, and I thought it was all to the good that the recipes had consequences, but I didn't think the writing was quite deft enough to carry the stories. It's missing an essential spark that makes stories like this come to life.

While it felt fairly obvious to me that this book was meant to set up a series, I don't plan on coming back to it. It's not a badly done novel, it just wasn't one that really pulled me in. My daughter said she liked it, but she wasn't as excited about it as she has been with some of the other books we've read together, and she took a long hiatus at one point in favor of reading something else--usually a good indication that she's not entirely engaged with a story.