“If someone found out they only had one day to live, they should totally move to Hog’s Hollow, because here every day feels like an eternity”
The Cupcake Queen by Heather Hepler, is narrated by Penny Lane (her father was a Beatles fan), a fourteen-year-old who has just moved from New York City to the tiny town of Hog’s Head with her mother. Her father, has remains in New York while her parents are separated.
Hog’s Hollow is one of those small towns where everyone knows each others business, and your ancestor’s pictures are posted around town, which is complete with a festival, parade and a Hog Queen.
As Penny negotiates her new school and works in her mother’s new cupcake bakery, she meets a cast of characters that are both quirky and familiar: the school bully, the outcast with crazy fashion sense, the cute boy, and the spunky grandmother.
Originally, Penny doesn’t seem to know how to confront her problems, whether it is in regards to bullies or talking to her mom. Her confusion about her parents seperation, the challenges of a small town compared to the big city, and how a family copes with the death of a parent are just a few of the themes within the story. Along the way, the reader sees as she works through her own problems and those of her friends. Ultimately, she must make a choice: does she stay in Hog’s Hollow with her mom, or does she return to New York and the life she loved with her dad?
“…I think about the problem with running from your trouble. The problem is in the stopping. The whole time you think you’re getting away from everything, the trouble is running like mad, too, trying to catch up with you. And it doesn’t slow down when you do–it keeps on sprinting. So when trouble finally reaches you, it hits you hard”
The book is as cute and sweet as the cupcakes on the cover, but strives to have substance. The story’s moral being that life is always going to throw out unexpected and often unwelcome, surprises. And that it matters how you work through them and the people you surround yourself with. Penny discovers that when you give things a chance, it can all work out much sweeter than you ever expected. Appropriate for girls, ten and up.
GENRE: Realistic Fiction
