Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 02/01/2010 K-Gr 3— Inspired by his favorite television show, Baking with Chef Monty , Jacob decides to make a pie. He finds a bowl of cut-up peaches in the refrigerator and ingredients for the crust in the cabinet. Though his sister tells him they are all going out to eat for his parents' anniversary, he keeps baking because one of Chef Monty's rules is to concentrate—no matter what. He pats the dough into the pan ("Pat! Snip! Cut! Trim!") and cleans up his mess when he spills the peaches. Though the steam holes in the crust look too large, he knows not to give up—another of Chef Monty's rules. When he slips on the damp floor, his sister catches the pie ("Jump! Up! Quick! Catch!") and he puts it into the oven where it hums while Jacob hums to himself. His parents wait as the pie bakes. To cool it quickly, Jacob plops ice cream on each slice, and everyone has pie—Jacob's anniversary gift to his parents—before dinner. With pencil and watercolor illustrations done in a palette of soft colors, Sweet captures the warmth and security Jacob feels in the kitchen. Words from Best's text are repeated in the art, especially the four-word sequences. While young readers can make Happy Peach Pie (recipe on the back jacket), this is about more than pie making. Important themes abound—love, security, cooperation, warmth, respect—and somehow all are tied to the simple acts of cooking and eating together. A delicious book for all collections.—Mary Jean Smith, Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TN - Copyright 2010 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 02/01/2010 After a long, hard day of school, Jacob loves to watch his favorite cooking show with Chef Monty. Even better than watching, though, is trying out recipes himself, and on the night of his parents’ anniversary, before his family leaves for a restaurant dinner, Jacob makes his first pie. Following all of Chef Monty’s rules, starting with “a happy baker bakes a happy pie,” Jacob puts together a peach pastry, facing each dilemma with more remembered advice, such as “if something unexpected happens, fix it as best as you can.” At last, just as his family is ready to leave, Jacob solves a final problem by cooling the too-hot-to-eat pie with ice cream and serves up “dessert before dinner” to his loving family before they all head off to the restaurant. Sweet’s glowing, citrus-bright collage scenes capture all the warmth, energy, and fun in this well-paced story that folds sly messages about working through problems into the celebratory tale. Chef Monty’s list of rules and a recipe for “Happy Peach Pie” complete this sweet treat. - Copyright 2010 Booklist.

Bulletin for the Center... - 03/01/2010 A big fan of the high-spirited TV personality Chef Monty, young Jacob cheerfully embarks on the making of a tasty peach pie. As his family prepares to go out to dinner, Jacob focuses on the preparation of his pastry, rolling out the dough and rolling with the punches as things deviate from plan, and finally presenting his delicious dish to the family as a celebratory pre-dinner dessert. Without an actual pie to eat, there’s not a lot of bang to the conclusion; the joy here is largely in the process, but that, due to Jacob’s enthusiastic cheffery, is quite a luscious slice of joy. Chef Monty’s Baking Rules, enumerated by Jacob as he cooks and included as a list on the front endpapers, hit the spot in a way that cooking guidelines often fail to do, focusing on having a good time when cooking and dealing with the inevitable surprises. Jacob provides an excellent example of the reward for the cook in following such sensible and pleasure-focused advice, and he’s also a believable character as a young baker, enjoying the tinkering and the possibilities as well as the food. Watercolor-and-pencil illustrations have a trim homeyness, with details that enhance the personable scenes: Jacob nimbly clambers up a stepstool to reach the cabinets and perches atop a pile of books to peer through the oven window at just the right height, while happy sound-effect text snippets, often of action words (“Pat! Snip! Cut! Trim!”), emphasize the energetic nature of the activity. This would be a reassuring counterpart to a cookbook in an entry-level kitchen lesson, especially if celebrated with pie. A recipe for peach pie (which deviates from Jacob’s by using premade piecrust) appears on the back cover. DS - Copyright 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

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