Here are 100 books that Eli Over Easy fans have personally recommended if you like
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True confession: I’m not a baker, but I love it when other people bake. It’s riveting to watch how they transform the humblest of ingredients into desserts that are beautiful and delicious. I get super excited to see this creative process unfold, which is why I adore The Great British Baking Show and other competitive reality baking programs. They inspired me to write Marvelous Jackson because my main character desperately wants to snag a coveted audition spot on The Marvelous Midwest Kids Baking Championship. He relishes the frenetic energy and noise of a kitchen packed with ambitious and talented people—just like I do!
McDunn covers a lot of ground in her heartwarming novel about Elliott, an aspiring young cook who finds refuge in the kitchen. Elliott struggles with ADHD, his best friend has moved away, and his dad and stepmom are getting ready to welcome their new baby. Everything feels chaotic and difficult—and it only gets worse when Elliott has to team up with the popular and wicked-smart Maribel for a huge school project.
Sure, there are some pretty big obstacles for Elliott to overcome in Honestly Elliott, but I love that his voice is unwavering and brave, and his journey from sesame noodles to “desperation pies” (cool historical reference alert!) is nothing short of delightful.
Schneider Family Book Award: Best Middle Grade Honor Book!
Highly-acclaimed author of Caterpillar Summer, Gillian McDunn explores boyhood in a funny, big-hearted story about a kid trying to find the best way to be his best self.
Elliott isn't sure where he fits in. Ever since his best friend moved away and his dad and stepmom announced the arrival of their new baby, he's been feeling invisible. Plus his dad just doesn't seem to understand what having ADHD really feels like, or why cooking is the one activity where Elliott's mind clicks into place.
True confession: I’m not a baker, but I love it when other people bake. It’s riveting to watch how they transform the humblest of ingredients into desserts that are beautiful and delicious. I get super excited to see this creative process unfold, which is why I adore The Great British Baking Show and other competitive reality baking programs. They inspired me to write Marvelous Jackson because my main character desperately wants to snag a coveted audition spot on The Marvelous Midwest Kids Baking Championship. He relishes the frenetic energy and noise of a kitchen packed with ambitious and talented people—just like I do!
Janowitz’s romp of a story centers on twelve-year-old Tristan, who loves reading cookbooks and making desserts. Life is sweet—until Tristan’s parents announce they’re leaving New York City and moving to the middle of nowhere. When he learns there are zero bakeries in his new town, Tristan pledges to bring back the famous Petersville chocolate cream doughnut, which sets him on an unexpected and entertaining adventure. He learns how to craft a business plan, buy ingredients in bulk, and manage demanding customers.
Spoiler alert number one: l like that even though Tristan nails the renowned doughnut, he puts his own delicious spin on things. Spoiler alert number two: this book will make you very hungry. Prepare accordingly.
Superfudge meets The Lemonade War in this funny, heartwarming book about change, adventure, family, and of course, doughnuts. Tristan isn't Gifted or Talented like his sister Jeanine, and he's always been okay with that because he can make a perfect chocolate chip cookie and he lives in the greatest city in the world. But his life takes a turn for the worse when his parents decide to move to middle-of-nowhere Petersville-a town with one street and no restaurants. It's like suddenly they're supposed to be this other family, one that can survive without bagels and movie theaters. His suspicions about…
True confession: I’m not a baker, but I love it when other people bake. It’s riveting to watch how they transform the humblest of ingredients into desserts that are beautiful and delicious. I get super excited to see this creative process unfold, which is why I adore The Great British Baking Show and other competitive reality baking programs. They inspired me to write Marvelous Jackson because my main character desperately wants to snag a coveted audition spot on The Marvelous Midwest Kids Baking Championship. He relishes the frenetic energy and noise of a kitchen packed with ambitious and talented people—just like I do!
Eleven-year-old Ellis is the hapless, harmonica-playing main character of Amos' book. He’s spending summer vacation with his newly divorced dad, who’s laser-focused on his goal of opening a brand-new cookie shop in Hollywood. Ellis gets roped into helping him, and shenanigans ensue, many of them involving chocolate chips, bags of sugar, and industrial-size mixers.
I love that Amos loosely based his debut on his own childhood in the 1970s when he helped his father—Wally “Famous” Amos (perhaps you’ve heard of him?)—open a cookie shop on Sunset Boulevard. Woven throughout Ellis’s story are spunky neighbors, Blues music, Black pride, and lessons celebrating the value of hard work. These components add depth to Amos’s otherwise fizzy story.
WINNER OF THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING LITERARY WORK—YOUTH/TEENS!
It's a summer of family, friendship, and fun fiascos in this acclaimed novel that's as irresistible as a fresh-baked cookie.
Ellis Bailey Johnson has the summertime blues. Instead of hanging out with friends, listening to music, and playing his harmonica, Ellis has to help bring his dad’s latest farfetched, sure-to-fail idea to life: open the world’s first chocolate chip cookie store.
They have six weeks to perfect their recipe, get a run-down A-frame storefront on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard into tip-top shape, and bring in customers. But nothing goes according to…
True confession: I’m not a baker, but I love it when other people bake. It’s riveting to watch how they transform the humblest of ingredients into desserts that are beautiful and delicious. I get super excited to see this creative process unfold, which is why I adore The Great British Baking Show and other competitive reality baking programs. They inspired me to write Marvelous Jackson because my main character desperately wants to snag a coveted audition spot on The Marvelous Midwest Kids Baking Championship. He relishes the frenetic energy and noise of a kitchen packed with ambitious and talented people—just like I do!
Thirteen-year-old Hudson stars on Broadway, but baking is his true passion. He’s ecstatic when he receives an invitation to participate in the Great American Baking competition—until he finds out what his assignment will be. He must make a cupcake with flavors that reflect his family’s ethnic background, and he knows nothing about Indian spices. (Cue the theatrics!)
Hudson’s multi-talented grandmother comes to the rescue, introducing him to the delights of cardamom, saffron, mango, and pistachio extract while his actor friends cheer him on. I love that one of the co-authors of Fearless: In the Mix is a Broadway star herself. (Did someone say Hamilton?) Her experiences certainly lend dramatic flair to this novel, perfect for older middle-grade readers.
Better Nate than Ever meets Love Sugar Magic in this “delectable” (Kirkus Reviews) third novel in the Fearless middle grade series from Hamilton and Broadway star Mandy Gonzalez about a young thespian who feels caught between his love of baking and theatre.
Twelve-year-old Hudson Patel has two great loves: Broadway and baking! In addition to giving his all to his role in the hit show Our Time, Hudson takes pride in keeping his castmates and fellow Fearless Squad members well-fed with all the delicious treats he creates.
When the call comes in for a big baking show—with the winner receiving…
I’m a psychologist in Los Angeles specializing in helping people identify their blind spots and break the cycles of their past by retraining their mindset about the future. I developed a new treatment called Future Directed Therapy and I’ve been helping people build better lives for over 15 years. I’m very passionate about empowering my clients to find practical skills and tools for taking charge of their emotional health and achieving the things they want in life. I recommend these books to my clients on a regular basis and find inspiration in them for my own blog Living Forward which I write as a featured expert for Psychology Today.
I recommend this book to many of my clients because you create your life based on your perceived self-concept about who you are in the world. If you don’t feel good about who you are it’s hard to build a good life. This book is great because it applies the well-researched principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy to overcoming the inner critic and building a positive view of one’s self, creating the much-needed platform for transforming your life.
Circumstances and status can affect self-esteem-many factors can contribute to the way we see ourselves-but the one contributing factor that all people who struggle with low self-esteem have in common is our thoughts. Of course we all have a better chance of feeling good about ourselves when things are going well, but it's really our interpretation of our circumstances that can cause trouble, regardless of what they are.
This revised and updated fourth edition of the best-selling Self-Esteem uses proven-effective methods of CBT and relevant components of ACT to help you raise low self-esteem by working on the way you…
I am an astrophysicist. I am a mother. I am an author. I am a cleaner of dishes, a cooker of meals. I am a daughter, a friend on the end of the phone, a reader of bedtime stories, and the one who hugs away the tears and kisses it better. But I am also just me. Emma. And the books I read are always to escape or understand the internal fight I have between identities and the feeling that pursuing one is failing all the others. Lift yourself above it all, breathe, and read yourself into a different world.
This is the first self-help book I have ever read, and I read it in 2019. I have always been honest about my battle with my mental health, from anxiety to depression. This book was recommended to me by an excellent expert in the field and it changed my view of my relationship with mental health as a battle. It sounds corny putting it into words but when you learn to accept the different parts of your personality and how they help and protect you, then it is easier to say “not right now, I need to make dinner, not crawl into bed”. The analogy that stuck with me was pulling a rope opposed by a character representing anxiety on the other side, and a pit in the middle. You can pull and pull, trying to avoid the pit, or you can… let go of the rope and accept that…
ACTivate Your Life focuses on helping people to be more open, connected and engaged with their lives, demonstrating how Acceptance Commitment Therapy can be used to tackle a range of problems such as low self-esteem, anxiety, anger and depression, as well as providing skills for life enhancement and self-development.
Readers are encouraged to consider what matters to them and will learn techniques to set life directions based on meaningful values. Readers will also be introduced to mindfulness and learn how to use it in everyday life to connect with their actions, experiences and the people around them. The ACT approach…
All these pugilistic narratives touch on people in hardship moving through dark spaces in their lives. I care about people on the fringes. I’ve known many people who have little or nothing. For a lot of my life, I’ve had little. I used to box. When something’s in your blood, you think about it every day. I can’t remember a day I haven’t thought about boxing. Once you’ve done it, it’s hard not to want to go back. You try to just pretend it away, but when it’s in you, it’s got hold. Because I understand this so well, feel it, have lived it, I absorb these boxing stories in a different kind of way.
The mantra for this novel could be that the effort matters more than anything—the attempt, the trying. Winning is something, but it’s not everything. Brooks, a high-school dropout, has to find his way in a world where his closest friend is dying from drug addiction, his household is broken, and street thugs are after him. Against all odds, if you love something and want it, the pursuit of that dream can help those who chase it with enough intensity to possibly overcome the hardship. When so many boxing stories are written with utter bleakness, there is light here.
The breakthrough modern sports novel The Contender shows readers the true meaning of being a hero.
This acclaimed novel by celebrated sportswriter Robert Lipsyte, the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in YA fiction, is the story of a young boxer in Harlem who overcomes hardships and finds hope in the ring on his path to becoming a contender.
Alfred Brooks is scared. He’s a high-school dropout, and his grocery store job is leading nowhere. His best friend is sinking further and further into drug addiction. Some street kids are after him for something he didn’t…
Children feel all their emotions, but I learned to suppress many emotions to avoidcriticism. The youngest, I learned to not trust my intuition. I was taught that the mind wasthe path to success. In my chosen medical profession, physicians use intellect to healbodies. The interconnection of thoughts, emotions, energy as well as interconnectionsbetween people and the environment are ignored.This separation from all of me was sapping me of the joy of living a full life.During my self healing integration journey: I uncovered limiting beliefs, reconnected withmy heart, and dove deep into the source of my pleasure. Bringing this awareness to lightshould be healing.
This book promotes diversity and inclusion. But beyond that, it reaffirms that we are all moresimilar than we are different.
We are all packaged uniquely but our desire to be accepted andloved for who we are is universal. And we are all worthy no matter how we are packaged. To behuman means we have a range of emotions. This is not a reason to judge another.
And we allhave our own thoughts – this too doesn't make us more or less likable – we can agree to disagree. And like my other book, it reminds us that humans are also similar toanimals and inanimate objects.
A #1 New York Times bestseller and Goodreads Choice Awards picture book winner! This is the perfect gift for mothers and daughters, baby showers, and graduation.
This gorgeous, lyrical ode to loving who you are, respecting others, and being kind to one another comes from Empire actor and activist Grace Byers and talented newcomer artist Keturah A. Bobo.
We are all here for a purpose. We are more than enough. We just need to believe it.
Plus don't miss I Believe I Can-the next beautiful picture celebrating self-esteem from Grace Byers and Keturah A. Bobo!
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with life and death. As a child, my own life was fairly mundane and even joyful. However, I went through loss like most. We lost two dogs when I was maybe seven or nine. Then my beagle Suzy, who we had the longest, was struck by a car on a rainy day. A few years later, my grandfather passed from cancer. Watching my mother grieve stuck with me. It shaped me—how I cared about life, how I longed to understand it. Once I decided to write stories for children, I knew it could be a safe place to explore my hidden feelings.
Sunny is one of four books in Reynold’s Track series. Each focuses on a member of the team. Sunny is extremely likable with his quiet voice and big—boomtickaboomboom—heart. He is home-schooled and raised by his father after his mother died in childbirth. Sunny’s journey is accepting that he did not kill her. It’s a poignant story told with the lyrical charm that belongs to Jason Reynolds.
Sunny tries to shine despite his troubled past in this third novel in the critically acclaimed Track series from National Book Award finalist Jason Reynolds.
Ghost. Patina. Sunny. Lu. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds, with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team—a team that could take them to the state championships. They all have a lot to lose, but they all have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves. Sunny is the main character in this novel, the third of…
I have an inclusive family with LGBTCuties whom I love dearly. I write and read paranormal romance, but quickly realized that my family might not be able to connect with my favorite genre because they don’t often see themselves represented as anything more than tragic plot points. I gaped at the horror that was hard to face, and realized I had work to do. Paranormal romance has enough room for all of us, so I set out to ensure that my children have books to read in my favorite genre, so we can all be one silly, magical family together, casting spells and looking around every corner for shifters and vampires.
Like every sentient human who loves a good cry, I believe the reboot of Queer Eye on Netflix is a must-watch. Their book is no less important.
The audiobook is read by the cast, and the advice is invaluable. The wisdom ranges from haircare basics to a step-by-step tutorial on how to connect with others.
From the Fab Five--the beloved hosts of Netflix's viral hit Queer Eye--comes a book that is at once a behind-the-scenes exclusive, a practical guide to living and celebrating your best life, and a symbol of hope.
Feeling your best is about far more than deciding what color to paint your accent wall or how to apply nightly moisturizer. It's also about creating a life that's well-rounded, filled with humor and understanding--and most importantly, that suits you. At a cultural moment when we are all craving people to admire, Queer Eye offers hope and acceptance. After you get to know the…
