Customer Reviews

The Muffin Child

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4 star:		(1)
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THE MUFFIN CHILD is a beautifully written book about loss andlove. Tanya, the protagonist, will steal your heart quietly andcompletely. It is the kind of story that catches up on you as you find yourself turning page after page. And when you get to the end, you'll find yourself reaching for a tissue...and wishing for more. THE MUFFIN CHILD would make a wonderful gift.

The Muffin Child is a novel of unusual beauty and power. On nearly every page, I found a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph that I read aloud to myself -- "It was one of those days that promises no sun, and then just before sundown the sun finds a crack in the clouds and glances over the countryside. The orange light caught the insects floating over the grass." Yes, exactly!

The story of loss denied was real to me. Tanya denies loss, plans for the return of her parents: "She was basking in the heat when the thought came to her to warm up the oven and make muffins for her parents. They would be hungry when they came. They would welcome a plate of hot muffins waiting for them. They would all have muffins and tea -- Tanya, her parents, and the man driving the cart."

But then there is the painful scene in the village when the cruel words and violence of the villagers brings the truth to her mind:

"They were dead. They had drowned. She'd heard the villagers say it. No one had ever come out and said it before. Now it was true.

"She knew it was true because, in a way, she'd known it amost from the beginning, as a kind of cold frightening thought in the back of her mind. In the back of her mind was a place like the well on the farm, when you leaned over its stone rim and looked down and couldn't see anything, but you felt the chill breathing up at you. Tanya had felt the chill ever since the night the river roared over the bridge."

"Now it was true." The cruel words of the villagers made it true.

Milenka, the cow, worried me at first. A cow that provides affection like a pet could easily have been very sentimental. But it didn't turn out that way. Menick carefully kept avoided that trap:

"Then she thought of Milenka. She should milk Milenka. Tanya went out and crossed the barnyard. The dawn was turning purple, with the silver of the moon like a golden weather vane on the top of the barn.

"It was warm inside the barn and it had that smell Tanya loved, the smell of cow and hay. The chickens rusted in their coop, and the geese in their pens lifted their heads and looked. Tanya heard something up in the hayloft -- the barn owl, home after a night's work.

"'Good morning, Milenka,' Tanya said, and as Milenka turned her head, Tanya felt the cow's wet breath on her arms. She reached down and pulled, and Malenka's milk squirted into the pail and smelled sweet."

A warm relationship, but, still, Milenka is a cow to be milked. And the milk makes possible those muffins.

Historical novels are not my favorite kind of reading. Some strike me as mostly "historical" and, therefore, removed from the immediacy of the lives of living human beings. Others seem to me to be modern sensationalism set uncomfortably in another time. Not The Muffin Child. The author brilliantly creates a world that is clearly very old and very distant; but he also creates a young girl who is so alive that she lives both now and then and other characters, selfish, even evil who also live in their own time but in my immediate world as well.

I understand that the final chapters of the book, where the Gypsies become major players, have caused some negative reactions. I guess I can understand that only if one forgets what the villagers do to the Gypsies, who (Anton, the knife sharpener and supposed friend of Tanya) turns out to have done the evil to the disabled child, Nikola, and why Tanya ends up with them. And, of course, the frame of the story -- a mother today telling a story to her rather disagreeable daughter, also named Tanya -- tells us at the end who the Tanya of the story was and brings the two Tanyas together:

"In the middle of the night the cow got out from under the covers. Tanya brought her back in. Milenka smelled like stale chocolate, or like a dog just in from the rain.

"Later, Milenka smelled like herself, like Milenka. The sun rose in the dark and burned the insects floating over the meadow. Tanya looked for the Muffin Child but didn't see her. The grass rustled at her feet, and she could feel Milenka's hide under the palm of her hand."

For the writing alone, The Muffin Child deserves a full five stars (six or more if that were possible). For the insights into loss and love, evil, cruelty, and forgiveness, I'd give it the Newbery Award if it were mine to give

A deceptively simple tale, "The Muffin Child" is a powerful story of loss, with its current of inner strength woven seamlessly through Stephen Menick's vivid and poetic writing style. Anyone who loves the magic of language and complexity of character, will love this book!

Tanya's life becomes entwined in the nightmarish threads of life as she strives to maintain her parents' memory. Complex and many-faceted, The Muffin Child successfully portrays the horrors ordinary people can inflict on others. It is a moving book to be enjoyed on all reading levels. Menick's brainchild is destined for a Newbery.

Stephen Menick weaves a wonderful tale in this novel for young readers. Set in the Balkans in the early days of the twentieth century, the story tells of eleven-year-old Tanya, a forthright little girl who refuses to give up hope when her parents are swept away by a raging river. At first in hopes of welcoming them back, then to brace against loneliness, and, eventually, to survive, Tanya bakes soon-to-be-renowned muffins, and learns that few things in life are as they first appear. Well-paced, masterfully told and with at times simply beautiful writing, this novel and its engaging characters (a faithful cow, meddling villagers, a blade-sharpener who speaks almost entirely in rhyme and pun, mysterious Gypsies) will surely entertain young readers for a week of rainy afternoons. Adults will admire Menick's deft handling of an intriguing plot and real-life themes that will linger in the mind and heart long after the clouds of adolescence have cleared away.

I read this book when I was NOT in the mood to read a YA novel... I was swept away. Tanya has all the qualities of a classic protagonist. She moves from child to woman-child through a painful process and we feel all the realizations she encounters as the story reaches it's powerful conclusion.

Perhaps the reviewer from Kirkus never grew up in a small town. If they had, then maybe they would realize that these situations are very true to life.

The Muffin child is really an exciting book. I was scared and at the same time sad about things that happened to Tanya and felt sorry for her. It was really bad losing her parents and being completely alone in the world. But I also admired her courage and a will to survive. I hated her suspicious and greedy neighbours. I thought a lot about Tanya when I finished reading. The life can be tough, but if you have a will and determination to succeed, you can do it. I imagine Tanya with big eyes, a little bit weird but smart, courageous and goodhearted kid in a far away land, surrounded with greedy neighbours, Gypsies...I can feel her sorrow and vulnerability, but I can feel her strength too. I also imagine her leaving home and finally coming on a big journey to America with a muffin from the old land in her pocket.

Menick,with his skilful writing, has menaged to revive the almost lost hope that computer games, TV cartoons and today's commercialised world of children's writing still cannot replace the pleasures drawn from reading a good book.His "Muffin Child"- the magical tale of a courageous and brave child Tanya,her dramatic and fiery fight for survival,captures the reader's attention and stimulates imagination.It initiates thinking about human nature, good and evil, life and survival, betrayal and loss, imperceptibly leading the young reader to learn to appreciate what good writing and literature is. I had a rare plesure of seeing my own child captured by the magic of Tanya's adventures. Tiptoeing late at night into his room to switch the lights off, he reminded me nostalgically of the time when I was also transferred into the world of Dicken's and Twain's heroes.

The year is 1913. The place -- an unspecified country in the Balkans. Tragedy is about to strike: 11-year old Tanya and her parents are returning home from the marketplace when they get caught in a sudden deluge. While Tanya runs ahead to put their cow back in the barn, the unthinkable happens. Neighbors offer assistance. One couple even volunteers to adopt the orphan. But Tanya, who is in denial,chooses to stay on her farm alone -- to prepare for her parents' homecoming. She bakes a daily batch of muffins, at first for comfort and then to help her make a living. Her business begins to thrive. But the reader who assumes that an 11 year old on her own in a quaint, early 20th century farming village is less likely to come up against danger than in our own treacherous times, learns otherwise. Tanya realizes she must learn to cope in an often pitiless world without the barrier more fortunate children have against evil -- parents. The Muffin Child is not about living "happily ever after." It is about the loss of innocence, human frailties, and a young girl's indomitable will to survive. The book is distinctive for its odd blend of the eerie and the earthy. Although the story occurs in a particular locale and era, it seems to exist in its own time and space. Yet this "otherworldliness" is mingled with a gritty realism to create a powerful story that lingers long after the book has been replaced on the shelf. Characters are complex and there are no moral absolutes. Thus, characters' actions are unpredictable and dramatic tension remains high. The Muffin Child is a book that rouses emotions and provokes serious thought -- exactly what a good read should do.