Cookie Monsters

About the Book

Genre: Middle Grade Contemporary
Publishing date: January 27th, 2023

Synopsis:

A fun, fast-paced novel about friendship, family, fighting for what’s right, and standing out from the crowd while standing up for yourself.

Twelve-year-old Brooklyn Ace is ready to take the Valentine World Scouts by storm and build her own cookie empire. She nearly won the top cookie selling spot last year and is determined to make her mom—who recently passed away—proud by coming in first this time around. With her fabulous best friends by her side, Brooklyn knows she’ll become Santa Monica’s District Cookie Queen. The crown is practically in the bag.

Then Piper Parker arrives.

Piper has a rich dad, a fancy hotel, and a drive to steal the cookie crown right off Brooklyn’s head. Before long, most of the seventh grade is under Piper’s spell. But Brooklyn is in it to win the biggest cookie war the school has ever seen. With the help of her cookie squad, her rockstar grandmother, her super cool therapist, and a lot of self-love and inner growth, maybe—just maybe—Brooklyn can end up a winner after all.

Quotes

Then there’s sleeping in, and waking up to brunch, which means pancakes or French toast for breakfast, which c’mon, is basically dessert.

I’m always here if you want to talk about your feelings. They’re here, and they matter.

Lyric shoves me out of the way and screeches into the screen door, “calling the cops on a bunch of scouts? What do you think we’re going to do, start a campfire on your lawn and make s’mores?”

Brooklyn, I know it’s hard to open up to someone you don’t really know and to tell them how you’re doing. That’s totally understandable if that’s even how you’re feeling.

And no, it isn’t my mom’s voice out there convincing everyone to buy cookies from me. It is mine.

But you used everything you’ve learned from her and put it all into being the best version of yourself- and she’s a big part of that.

Review

Rating: 5 stars

Rep: BIPOC, Mental Illness.

Characters

Cookie Monsters had fantastic characters to me. Brooklyn had been through a lot in the last year, and she was just trying to do well in the cookie-selling competition in memory of her mother. Piper Parker was the antagonist, and you didn’t know much about her story until late in the book, but she was an interesting character for me as well. Brooklyn had her squad of friends who sold cookies with her, and they were all a lot of fun to read about because they each had their own interests that made them unique. Brooklyn’s grandmother and her father were great supporting characters, and I loved seeing them pop up throughout the story.

Plot

The story of Cookie Monsters was more than just characters selling cookies. For me, it was about finding yourself and embracing who you are as a person. I loved how hard Brooklyn worked to sell cookies, she was doing it for her mom, but she was also doing it for herself because she knew that she could do it and wanted to prove to herself that she could sell cookies. Over the course of the story, Brooklyn’s confidence grew, and by the end of the book, I was so proud of her. Cookie Monsters was also a story of mental health and asking for help from friends and family when you need it.

Writing

Even with Middle-Grade Novels, writing still plays a big part in the story. Erika J Kendrick is a fantastic writer who wrote Cookie Monsters with a lot of heart. During the light light-hearted scenes in the novel, as a reader, I was having fun, and laughing because the characters were having fun, and enjoying the company of each other. This novel had some very intense and heavy scenes as well, and during these scenes, there was a tonal shift, and you could tell that the characters were having a big moment as well.

Friendship

Brooklyn had her squad, and they were all so sweet. Each girl really cared about Brooklyn, and they were always there to support her when she needed it. Each girl in the squad had their own things were dealing with, and with the help of her friends, they wear able to come out stronger on the other side. Brooklyn was a cheerleader, and I loved seeing Magic and the Honeybees in this book as well.

Enjoyment

I loved this novel a lot. I had a lot of fun reading it, and it was the perfect mixture of a fun story and a heartwarming story. Anyone who likes Middle-Grade novels should check out this one.

About the Author

Erika J. Kendrick is an acclaimed writer, a national speaker, and a mental fitness expert. She earned a psychology degree from Stanford University and an MBA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Erika was an NBA cheerleader for the Chicago Bulls before writing her novels, Confessions of a Rookie Cheerleader (Random House) and Appetite (Random House). She is currently touring her debut middle grade novel, Squad Goals, with Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. The spinoff, Cookie Monsters, is set for a summer 2022 release.

After battling her brain pain, Erika founded Mental Fitness For Life where she launched her latest Mental Fitness book tour, “Who Moved My Happy?” While talking to audiences of all backgrounds and ages, Erika shares her story of brain pain and inspires hope by creating safe spaces for life-saving conversations. She has presented and guest lectured at colleges and universities as well as the US Army and US Air Force, national sororities and fraternities, middle and high schools, conferences, retreats, and national organizations, large and small. Erika has toured with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and is a speaker with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) where she has been inducted into their Hall of Fame.

Erika is a recipient of several “Who’s Who” honors, a Rising Icon honor, and several Awards of Excellence. Erika has taken the stage for TEDx, appeared on Good Morning America – The Third Hour (GMA3), NBC News, CBS News, The Wendy Williams Experience, national television and radio segments, and a host of other media outlets. She has been featured in several publications, including Page Six of The New York Post, The Huffington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and various other magazines and digital media.

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