First sentence: "Lunch is gross today," I said, lifting a piece of limp iceberg lettuce and letting it drop to my plate. I sighed and rubbed my eyes.
Premise/plot: Sprinkles Before Sweethearts is the fifth book in the Sprinkle Sundays series by Coco Simon. In the first book, Allie's parents get divorced. Allie moves with her mom and brother to a nearby town. She misses her best friends Tamiko and Sierra very much. Fortunately, these three friends find a way to be together each and every week by working together in her mom's ice cream shop. The books alternate main characters or narrators. This is Tamiko's second title to narrate. (She was the narrator of the second book, Cracks in the Cone.)
In this book, Tamiko is SUPER FRUSTRATED that she's "surrounded" by people with crushes. She doesn't want to be around boy-crazy or girl-crazy classmates or friends. Why should she want a "sweetheart"?!?!
At the shop, the mom is struggling now that it's closer to fall/winter to keep customers coming to the ice cream shop. Perhaps the answer is new flavors, kid-friendly flavors of course. Maybe if she allows her three tween employees to taste-test all the flavors (so they can better "sell" the product), try new sundaes (so the ice cream won't get "old") and pay for them to go to the amusement park so they can observe what food stands are busiest and what foods are most popular. She pays for them to try all the foods. They can report back with ideas on what flavors she should try to make next.
At school, Tamiko is struggling to come up with an idea for a science class project and with having to draw a BOY in art class.
My thoughts: I enjoy this series. It is definitely taking me back to my own series-binging days of Babysitters Club. There is so much that is not realistic (I hope!) about this series. One scene that was driving me a bit crazy was when the three kids EXPERIMENT WITH FLAVORS THEMSELVES AND MAKE SEVERAL ICE CREAMS FOR THE MOM TO TASTE-TEST. They are using her ingredients (which cost money), her kitchen... without any knowledge or experience of HOW TO ACTUALLY MAKE ice cream. They are essentially throwing money out the window all under the delusion that they are HELPING. Their ice cream flavors are horrendous. And she tells them to NOT try to make their own flavors in the future. But still. Shouldn't they know better without having to be told?!?!
© 2019 Becky Laney of Young Readers
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