Miss Sugar Crumb is a fair young maiden who loves animals and people. She enjoys feeding animals and taking food to the sick and needy. She never asks anything in return for her generosity. Wonderful, magical things happen to both animals and people who taste the treats cooked in her kitchen.
Among those affected by this magic are a young couple and some forest animals. Their story comes alive with Malinda’s words and Nora’s beautiful illustrations.
The Story Behind This Book
I love to write children's books that promote love and friendship.
Praise and Reviews
Book: Miss Sugar Crumb’s Magic Kitchen
Author: Malinda Mitchell
Publisher: Tex Ware, 2009
Illustrator: Nora Tapp Franzese
ISBN-13: 978-1-935500-06-3
Related website: www.authorsden.com/MalindaMitchell (author), www.tex-ware.com (publisher)
Language level: 1 (nothing objectionable)
Reading Level: ages 8-12
Rating: 5 stars (EXCELLENT)
Reviewed by Wayne S. Walker
Mitchell, Malinda. Miss Sugar Crumb’s Magic Kitchen (published in 2009 by Tex Ware, Everett, WA). Most fairy tales are set in some undetermined place and time, but what would it be like if a fairy tale was put in a modern setting? Miss Sugar Crumb lives in a little yellow house surrounded by a white picket fence out in the country. She likes to plant flowers, bake pies, feed the animals that live in the woods near her house, and visit her neighbors, Jake and Emma Colworth, who are childless but very much want a baby. But why was a rabbit able to talk with Miss Sugar Crumb and tell her that hunters were trespassing on her property and the Colworth’s property? And when she went to ask the Colworths to put up more “No Trespassing” signs on their property, why did the green and pink tea cup which she took with her and accidentally left suddenly have the faces of a little boy and a little girl on it?
Miss Sugar Crumb’s Magic Kitchen is a charming, fairy-tale like story, that children will adore, but the characters are pictured by the striking illustrations from Nora Tapp Franzese in as modern a fashion as you or I would be, perhaps making it appear more relevant or applicable to our time. Miss Sugar Crumb seems initially to be unaware of the magic in her kitchen, but she likes helping the animals and doing good deeds for others. Maybe there is a metaphor here about how we may not always realize the sort of “magic” that we can work in the lives of people by our pleasant attitudes and acts of kindness. Miss Sugar Crumb certainly provides a positive role model for youngsters, and I can’t think of a better reason to read a book. Author Malinda Mitchell has given us a pearl.
