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My Chocolate Year : : a Novel With 12 Recipes

Herman, Charlotte. Book - 2008 None on shelf No requests on this item Community Rating: 4.9 out of 5

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In 1945 Chicago, as her Jewish family anxiously awaits news of relatives left behind in Europe, ten-year-old Dorrie learns new recipes in the hope of winning a baking competition at school. Includes recipes for various foods, from chocolate pudding to chocolate mandelbread.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Interesting Story submitted by rkm on June 21, 2011, 5:21pm I liked this book. It had a lot of desserts in it, and I like to bake, so that was fun. Dorrie is the main character, and she wants to win her school's Sweet Semester, so she finds a good recipe and uses it. Overall, a generally good story.

good submitted by unknown on August 17, 2013, 11:55pm What a gem of a book! MY CHOCOLATE YEAR by Charlotte Herman starts out as a sweet story about 10-year-old Dorrie, who is a fifth-grader in Chicago just after the end of World War II. Dorrie is excited about the annual "Sweet Semester" contest run by her teacher. Every student is to plan a special dessert, which they will bring in to class at the end of the semester for a contest. The students sample each other's desserts and vote on the best one. They also write an essay explaining their choice of dessert, and their teacher judges the best essay.

Dorrie has been looking forward to her chance at winning Sweet Semester since her older brother, Artie, participated when he was in fifth grade. She is determined to win, and the book is interspersed with her attempts at various concoctions. It even includes actual recipes for some of the desserts, including Peppermint Chocolate Sticks and a scrumptious-sounding Chocolate Nut Torte.

While Dorrie is focused on the contest and on finding that perfect recipe, her family is adjusting to post-war life. They are Russian Jews who managed to escape the Holocaust, but not all of their relatives were so lucky. It sounds like a surprisingly sad topic to combine with the lightweight feel of the dessert contest, but author Herman executes this integration flawlessly.

In fact, her inclusion of the cultural elements of post-World War II Chicago make reading this book educational without ever feeling like it. For instance, I had no idea that there used to be "silver" pennies, or that chocolate chip cookies were invented by a woman named Ruth Wakefield, or that sugar was rationed.

It also makes perfect sense to show this time and place in American life through the eyes of a fifth-grader, and of course she is more focused on her big contest at school than with the letters her parents receive from relatives overseas. Dorrie does have a big heart, though, and it is that heart and conscience that guides her to what she eventually chooses as her entry for Sweet Semester.

Cover image for My chocolate year : : a novel with 12 recipes


PUBLISHED
New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, c2008.
Year Published: 2008
Description: 163 p. : ill. ; 19 cm.
Language: English
Format: Book

READING LEVEL
Lexile: 720

ISBN/STANDARD NUMBER
9781416933410 (hbk.)
1416933417 (hbk.)

ADDITIONAL CREDITS
Pham, LeUyen.

SUBJECTS
Baking -- Fiction.
Contests -- Fiction.
Schools -- Fiction.
Chicago (Ill.) -- History -- 20th century -- Fiction.