Recommended children's booklists sorted by age or topic

Home > Blog > Guest Post, Review & Giveaway: Ewa Jozefkowicz / The Cooking Club Detectives

Guest Post, Review & Giveaway: Ewa Jozefkowicz / The Cooking Club Detectives

A gently unfolding detective story that delicately unpacks themes of food poverty, friendship and the importance of community spaces. Author Ewa Jozefkowicz says of the book, ‘The pandemic has had a huge impact on food insecurity, with as many as 2.3 million children now affected. So through my book, as well as telling a story, I wanted to highlight the importance of community and to show all readers that they shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help if they need it.’ This is a relatively quick read – but a deeply satisfying one – that will appeal to readers who enjoy true-to-life stories, a mystery to solve and gentle storytelling that explores real-world issues.

We are thrilled to welcome to the blog Ewa Jozefkowicz, whose newest book The Cooking Club Detectives is available now.

Ewa and her publisher Zephyr are supporting UK charity Magic Breakfast, which works in schools to combat hunger as a barrier to a learning. Ewa saw first-hand the huge benefits of the charity when she was a governor at a London primary school. It is the work of Magic Breakfast that inspired The Cooking Club Detectives.

Find our review of the book below and read on for a guest post from Ewa, who tells us about the theme of food poverty in the book and how she worked with the Magic Breakfast charity, which is partnering with Marcus Rashford to help spread the word further.

 

Review

Book Title: The Cooking Club Detectives (available here)

Author: Ewa Jozefkowicz

Publisher: Zephyr

Publication Date: June 2021

Most Suitable for: Years 5-6

A gently unfolding detective story that delicately unpacks themes of food poverty, friendship and the importance of community spaces. Author Ewa Jozefkowicz says of the book, ‘The pandemic has had a huge impact on food insecurity, with as many as 2.3 million children now affected. So through my book, as well as telling a story, I wanted to highlight the importance of community and to show all readers that they shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help if they need it.’

When Erin moves to a new school, she quickly bonds with three new friends as they attend an after-school cooking club at the local community centre. Erin is thrilled about the club, and cooking has always been an important part of life for Erin and her mum, Lara. Erin’s mum is an expert in making delicious recipes from low-cost ingredients, and dreams of one day being able to share them with a global audience. But a series of knock-backs, from job losses and failed auditions to online trolling, make Lara’s ambitions seem like an impossibly distant pipe dream. One day, the friends discover that the community centre where their club is held is under the threat of closure. Something seems out of place, and Erin begins to wonder what could possibly lie behind the closure of a centre that provides such a valuable space to her community. Soon, the friends form the Cooking Club Detectives and set out to solve the mystery, with some big surprises along the way.

Folded into the story are real recipes at key moments in the plot – from mum’s ‘Eggsquisite Egglets’ and cooking club leader Mrs Gupta’s Spinach and Cheese Pancakes. to the Portuguese paella that Erin makes with her friend Frixos and Erin’s own banana bread bonanza – saved for a very special celebration. The real recipes are a great touch, and all of them would be simple enough for young readers to try at home. I really enjoyed how the power of local community and the act of asking for help were positively explored – with no stigma attached to food poverty, but rather a celebration of resilient families and of communities coming together. Ewa Jozefkowicz’s books never rush through the plot, but pause to explore the experiences of different people sharing experiences together. The writing gives space for a range of perspectives and characters’ background stories to be heard (as well as their recipes!), celebrating communities that listen to one another and demonstrating the power of small voices in solving big problems.

This is a relatively quick read – but a deeply satisfying one – that will appeal to readers who enjoy true-to-life stories, a mystery to solve and gentle storytelling that explores real-world issues.

The Cooking Club Detectives is available to purchase online from BookShop.Org or Amazon.

Guest Post: Food Poverty & Magic Breakfast

with Ewa Jozefkowicz, author of The Cooking Club Detectives (available here)

Even before Marcus Rashford made food poverty among school children the headline news it sadly is, I’d written The Cooking Club Detectives to help raise awareness of this problem and of the work of Magic Breakfast, a charity which provides healthy breakfasts for children at risk of hunger in the UK.

The story centres on four friends who come together through their mutual love of food and join a cooking club held at their local community centre, Skipton. When the building is suddenly threatened with closure, Erin and her new friends, Tanya, Frixos, and Sam, form The Cooking Club Detectives. Their goal is to find out who is behind it all, and their search for the culprit unravels some unexpected findings.

Sadly, COVID-19 has increased the impact of food insecurity for many families in the UK and across the globe. In writing The Cooking Club Detectives, I wanted to highlight the importance of community and to show all readers that they shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help if they need it.

Magic Breakfast, the charity which provided the inspiration for the story, works with over 1,000 schools in the UK, offering breakfasts to around 170,000 children each school day. In addition to its core work, it currently co-delivers the National School Breakfast Programme in England with Family Action, which is funded by the Department for Education until July 2021.

The charity has recently partnered with Marcus Rashford and Macmillan Children’s Books, to launch the Marcus Rashford Book Club – a programme to encourage and nurture a love of reading in children. As part of the programme, 50,000 free books will be donated to KS2 children in over 850 partner primary schools.

To learn more about what Magic Breakfast does, and for ideas on how you can help fundraise or campaign for this wonderful charity, check out their website: www.magicbreakfast.com

> Order The Cooking Club Detectives on BookShop.Org

> Order The Cooking Club Detectives on Amazon

> Visit Ewa Jozefkowicz’s Website

—————-

*****Book Giveaway!****

 

Thanks to the publishers at Zephyr, we have three copies of The Cooking Club Detectives to give away to our followers.

To enter, follow @booksfortopics on Twitter and retweet the giveaway tweet.

The giveaway opens on the evening of 9th June and closes at 11.59pm on 15th June 2021 (UK only)

Subscribe to our newsletter

Your Review

Stone Girl Bone Girl

review

Year group(s) the book is most suitable for:

Year group(s) the book is most suitable for:

Does the book contain anything that teachers would wish to know about before recommending in class (strong language, sensitive topics etc.)?

Does the book contain anything that teachers would wish to know about before recommending in class (strong language, sensitive topics etc.)?

Would you recommend the book for use in primary schools?

yes

Curriculum links (if relevant)

Curriculum links (if relevant)

Any other comments

Any other comments