What are the essential ingredients that make a family? Eleven-year-old Mo is making up her own recipe in this unforgettable story that’s a little sweet, a little sour, and totally delicious.
Nan was all the family Mo ever needed. But suddenly she’s gone, and Mo finds herself in foster care after her uncle decides she’s not worth sticking around for.
Nan left her a notebook and advised her to get a hobby, like ferret racing or palm reading.
But how could a hobby fix anything in her newly topsy-turvy life?
Then Mo finds a handmade cookbook filled with someone else’s family recipes. Even though Nan never cooked, Mo can’t tear her eyes away. Not so much from the recipes, but the stories attached to them. Though, when she makes herself a pot of soup, it is every bit as comforting as the recipe notes said.
Soon Mo finds herself asking everyone she meets for their family recipes. Teaching herself to make them. Collecting the stories behind them. Building a website to share them. And, okay, secretly hoping that a long-lost relative will find her and give her a family recipe all her own.
But when everything starts to unravel again, Mo realizes that if she wants a family recipe-or a real family-she’s going to have to make it up herself.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 368
Imprint: Random House Inc
Publication date: 02/04/2024
Lasagna Means I Love You
By Kate O'Shaughnessy
Review by Genna
After the passing of her grandmother, Mo enters the foster care system and finds comfort through cooking after discovering a family recipe book. Longing for her own family recipe, Mo sets up her own website to collect these recipes and hopefully find a family of her own. Told through journal entries to her grandma, this is a loving story of grief, friendship and proof that family isn't always blood.
