Sixth-grade girls reluctantly partnered in an after-school cooking club find the recipe for new friendship in Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan's empathetic middle-grade collaboration, A Place at the Table.
Desperate to improve family meals, British American Elizabeth Shainmark enrolls in a South Asian cooking club taught by caterer Mrs. Hameed. Sara Hameed, a Pakistani American classmate who recently transferred from a small Islamic school, also attends the class, but only because her mom is the teacher. Shifting friend dynamics leave Elizabeth without a cooking partner and Sara, who would rather sketch than stir spices, begrudgingly steps in. The girls find common ground in their quests for their mothers' United States citizenship and a cooking competition prize, developing a genuine camaraderie while broaching conversations around religion, xenophobia and mental illness.
Through alternating chapters, Faruqi (the Yasmin series) and Shovan (Takedown) lend personal experience to this story of nuanced identities and nascent friendship. Sara and Elizabeth's rocky relationship rings true to tween dynamics, and the writing maintains a hopeful tone as it confronts bigotry with modeled behavior. Small moments prove instructive, such as an offhand conversation on cultural versus religious perspectives on ear-piercing. Short chapters, heavy dialogue and descriptive writing--particularly about food--should appeal to both younger and reluctant readers. Authors' notes and a recipe for the girls' fusion ice cream round out the novel.
This authentic cross-cultural novel offers tastes of identity, assimilation and allyship for fans of middle school friendship stories--and food shows. --Kit Ballenger, youth librarian, Help Your Shelf