Hi, everyone! Today I'm happy to present an interview with Rajani LaRocca, the author of the MG book Midsummer's Mayhem, and the upcoming 2021 release, Red, White, and Whole. She is also the author of the upcoming Picture Book, Seven Golden Rings: A Tale of Music and Math.
The bold font are the questions I asked, the regular font are her answers, and the bold italic font are my comments about her answers.
Would you please tell us a little about Midsummer's Mayhem?
Midsummer's Mayhem is a story about an 11-year-old girl named Mimi who loves to bake. But she's the youngest of four children and feels a bit invisible compared to her very accomplished brother and sisters. Then she visits a new local bakery, the While Away Café, and learns they are running a kids' baking contest! Mimi thinks if she can just win the contest, she can finally prove she's not the least talented member of her family. But she loses her best helper when her food writer dad returns from a business trip unable to tell the difference between delicious and disgusting. Without his help, Mimi will never be able to bake something impressive enough to propel her to gastronomic fame.
Drawn into the woods behind her house by a strangely familiar song, Mimi meets Vik, a boy who brings her to parts of the forest she’s never seen. Together they discover exotic ingredients and bake them into delectable and enchanting treats. But as her dad acts stranger every day, and her siblings’ romantic entanglements cause trouble in their town, Mimi begins to wonder whether the ingredients she and Vik found are somehow the cause of it all. She needs to use her skills, deductive and epicurean, to uncover what’s happened. In the process, she learns that in life, as in baking, not everything is sweet. . .
Squabbling sisters, rhyming waitresses, and culinary saboteurs mix up a recipe for mayhem in this Indian-American mashup of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and competitive baking.
I’ve heard there’s a companion novel to Midsummer's Mayhem coming out next year! Can you tell us anything about it?
Much Ado About Baseball will publish on June 1, 2021. It's a story about Trish and Ben, 12-year-old math competition rivals who find themselves on the same summer baseball team. They can't stand each other, and their team isn't able to win a single game. But then they meet a baseball prodigy and an odd green-haired girl who both imply that eating chips and fries from the Salt Shaker, a new snack shop in town, might make them become better baseball players and teammates. Trish and Ben each find mysterious math puzzle books that promise to lead to the "ultimate answer, " and once they start eating the snacks and solving the puzzles, their baseball team becomes unstoppable. No matter what is causing the team’s magical turnaround, they're happy to keep riding the wave of good luck…until they get to a puzzle they can’t solve, with tragic consequences.
Trish and Ben must find a way to work together to fix what they’ve inadvertently caused. Can they find the answer to the ultimate puzzle, or will they strike out when it counts the most? In this companion novel to Midsummer’s Mayhem, math and baseball combine with savory snacks to cause confusion and calamity in the town of Comity.
This sounds fun! :)
Random Question! What’s your favorite thing to bake?
Chocolate chip cookies! I love the classic recipe, but I also love yummy variations in the form of flourless peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and double chocolate malted milk cookies!
Chocolate chip cookies are so good! :)
If you're able to talk about it, what are you currently working on?
I'm working on a couple of MG ideas -- one is contemporary written in a combination of poetry and prose, and another is a fantasy idea I'm just starting to think about. I will have five picture books publishing between 2020-2022, and I'm working on more right now!
What are some of your favorite MG books you've read? And what are some that you're looking forward to reading?
I recently read A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat, a Thai-inspired fantasy retelling of Les Miserables, and I loved it! Next, I'm looking forward to reading Efrén Divided by Ernesto Cisneros, Ghost Squad by Claribel Ortega, and Stand Up, Yumi Chung! by Jessica Kim.
There are so many good sounding MG books out this year! :)
Thank you to Rajani LaRocca for participating in this event! :)
Author Bio: Rajani LaRocca is a book lover, doctor, and foodie who was born in India, raised in Kentucky, and now lives in the Boston area. Her debut middle grade novel, Midsummer’s Mayhem (Yellow Jacket), is an Indian-American mashup of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and competitive baking. Her debut picture book, Seven Golden Rings: A Tale of Music and Math is set in ancient India and introduces the basics of binary numbers. Learn more about her at www.RajaniLaRocca.com and on Twitter and Instagram @rajanilarocca.
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It makes me smile! : )