Saturday 28 August 2021

The Secret is Out

The Secret is Out (Trudie Cooper Super Foodie Series) by Carolyn Eldridge-Alfonzetti, illustrated by Julia Weston, (Brolly Books) ISBN 9781922418005 RRP $14.99

Reviewed by Claire Stuckey

Trudie loves cooking; in fact, she started at a very early age. However, Trudie and her parents have kept her super talent for cooking and developing recipes a secret. At age ten her skills are amazing, but she is not so fabulous at maths or art or other sporting endeavours. After a P&C meeting at their house, Trudie is upset to learn the next morning that the school library must shut. This means losing not only all the fabulous books, cookbooks as well, and Miss Best the librarian. While watching her favourite TV show Super Chef, Trudie decides she will ask the host Aggie Weir for help. Trudie and her parents are overwhelmed by the response, but this opportunity will mean Trudie’s secret will be out.

This nice colourful reader has good production quality and looks appealing to those children caught up in the popularity of cooking shows. The story is well written and concentrates wholly on the central character. Both the letter to Aggie Weir and the recipes provides different text types and expanded vocabulary which assists children reading this style of chapter book.  My only issue was that the story seemed to end abruptly. Given an opportunity to publish her cookbook – how, when and would the library be repaired? Trudie’s secret was out but only to Aggie and the publisher at this point. Perhaps the author intended this to segue to the next book in the series?

Recommended for age 7 years plus.

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