Lasagna Means I Love You
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
What are the essential ingredients that make a family? Eleven-year-old Mo is making up her own recipe in this unforgettable story that's a little sweet, a little sour, and totally delicious.
Nan was all the family Mo ever needed. But suddenly she’s gone, and Mo finds herself in foster care after her uncle decides she’s not worth sticking around for.
Nan left her a notebook and advised her to get a hobby, like ferret racing or palm reading.
But how could a hobby fix anything in her newly topsy-turvy life?
Then Mo finds a handmade cookbook filled with someone else’s family recipes. Even though Nan never cooked, Mo can’t tear her eyes away. Not so much from the recipes, but the stories attached to them. Though, when she makes herself a pot of soup, it is every bit as comforting as the recipe notes said.
Soon Mo finds herself asking everyone she meets for their family recipes. Teaching herself to make them. Collecting the stories behind them. Building a website to share them. And, okay, secretly hoping that a long-lost relative will find her and give her a family recipe all her own.
But when everything starts to unravel again, Mo realizes that if she wants a family recipe—or a real family—she’s going to have to make it up herself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A white 11-year-old in mourning navigates foster care and seeks connection by collecting families' recipes and stories in this tenderly rendered, character-driven novel by O'Shaughnessy (The Lonely Heart of Maybelle Lane). When the grandmother who raised her dies, and her sole uncle says he can't take care of her, Mo Gallagher finds herself waiting for a foster placement in New York City. Journal entries framed as letters to her grandmother seek to reforge a connection amid rapid change ("If anyone can find a way to communicate from the afterlife, it's you"). The letters also relay Mo's worry about sharing recent events with best friend Crystal Wang, who is Chinese American; her promising interest in cooking after she finds a book of family recipes; and her growing friendship with the doorman at the building where she now lives. She begins to find her feet after starting a food website but falters when the placement she's been getting used to hits a snag. Mo's pitch-perfect voice vividly portrays her metropolitan past life with her quirky, vibrant grandmother; her own messy and layered feelings; and her established and growing relationships with others. Watching Mo develop new bonds and begin to feel like she has a place in the world is extremely satisfying. Ages 8–12.
