Midsummer's Mayhem

De: Rajani LaRocca

Narrado por: Ariana Delawari

Can Mimi undo the mayhem caused by her baking in this contemporary fantasy retelling of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream?

Eleven-year-old Mimi Mackson comes from a big Indian American family: Dad's a renowned food writer, Mom's a successful businesswoman, and her three older siblings all have their own respective accomplishments. It's easy to feel invisible in such an impressive family, but Mimi's dream of proving she's not the least talented member of her family seems possible when she discovers a contest at the new bakery in town. Plus, it'll start her on the path to becoming a celebrity chef like her culinary idol, Puffy Fay.

But when Mimi's dad returns from a business trip, he's mysteriously lost his highly honed sense of taste. 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. Who knew there were banyan trees and wild boars in Massachusetts? 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.

©2019 Rajani LaRocca (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Baking Magic

Loved the story! Excellent narrator. Scrumptious desserts will have you wanting to bake or go to your local bakery. The author weaved a great story for all ages to enjoy!

Great all ages story

This audiobook is one of the all time favorites that my son and I have listened to together. He said he ‘admired the author’ for not making the young characters do dangerous things, inappropriate for their age, to move the plot along (ha!). My son and I have a love of Shakespeare in common and a love of retellings in common, so this was perfect. I found it entertaining as an adult too, so it’s a good sharing-with-family book.

amazing

it was great I love the storyline thank you so much to the author please write more listen to it multiple times and I really like it so thank you to the author again and please write more again

A fun romp

Would be a good bedtime story to read for kids. Fun, adventure, self discovery, confidence and value.

Delectable Middle-grade adventure

This was such a joy to listen to. The narration was wonderful, and the story was mouth watering and magical!

Amazing 🤩

I love it so much !!!!!! great book thank you to the author please write more!!!!!

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻🤩💘💘💘🤩🤩🤩💵💗💗💗💗

good middle grade adaptation, + new twists

I love listening to middle grade books. I appreciate other age demographics as well, ya through adult, but there's a special charm that's lost once you leave middle grade, and this book has that charm in spades.

I had some very minor quibbles about how some of the plot things happened-- they're really asking me to believe a theater company would intentionally put on A Midsummer Night's Dream with the opening night on the summer solstice and in the woods? theater people will get Legit Mad if you name drop "the Scottish play," I don't believe for a moment this in charge would tempt fate like that lmao-- but... that's minor, bc I'm well aware that the parallels DO make the story stronger, esp so they can highlight where the stories do in fact differ.

the narration was... good, but not great. the emphasis landed oddly sometimes, there were some sentences (dialogue especially) that were read in a tone which seemed counter to the context given by the text itself, etc. but she did put effort into giving characters audibly different voices, which helped me keep track of the rather large cast.

overall, I loved it. if I were curating a book list for middle school kids to read over the summer, this would be one of my top choices. it's fun and shows how Shakespeare can be fun as well, despite his reputation for being The Bard and all. it has a good moral imo about a few things, but notably impressed that one char literally came out and said "the plot contest is exploiting you for your baked goods & publicity." said in a moment of meanness, but it was proven pretty much accurate by the end-- if anything, that was underselling the issue rather than over doing it.

Very Mischievous and Fun

It was great! I really enjoyed this book! Mischievous and a bit of baking is a great combo!

enchanting

it made the story of a midnight Summer dream. much more accessible for younger audiences. ended a fabulous job of modernizing the fairy hijinks.

Delightful!

Made baking sound like so much fun! Great story to hear! Excellent narrator! Recommend .