Everyone enjoys the cosiness and friendliness of their favourite café. But what happens when the place you love suddenly changes?
Mabel loves visiting Miss Plum’s Sugar Plum Café and drawing pictures for the arty-smarty wall. But one day, Mabel finds the café under renovation by someone new. She misses her favourite café, and she misses Miss Plum’s smiles. One day, the café reopens, and Mabel reluctantly visits there with her mother. Will this new place provide Mabel with the same joy she felt in the old place? And how will Mabel accept its differences?
In The Welcome Cookies, Mabel witnesses what she perceives to be the destruction of a place she loved. The story shows how even though we can sometimes mourn the loss of a place and miss seeing people, if we open ourselves to new things, it can mean new beginnings and a chance for new friendships to develop. The story also shows how a child has the power to make someone feel special and welcome.
With sensitive illustrations that give life to Mabel’s emotional responses, this book will have young and old alike wanting to visit their local café to taste the welcome cookies.
Kaye Baillie is an award-winning children’s author, with eleven fiction and non-fiction books published in Australia and internationally. With a passion for writing about remarkable people or events, Kaye’s stories are full of humour and heart.
Kirrili Lonergan is a children’s book illustrator, art therapist and mother of four. She has illustrated several picture books as well as creating designs for clothes, prints and pottery.
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Magpie’s Magazine
“Together, the text and artwork offer sensitivity, emotion, warmth and hope for young and older readers, inspiring us all to try new things, accept change, and cherish our favourite places and people.”
StoryLinks
“This is an uplifting and empowering story for 4- to 8-year-old and though there is a reasonable amount of text on each page, the heartfelt story and sensitive illustrations provide a lesson in having an open mind to life’s changes.”
Midwest Book Review
“With sensitive illustrations that give life to Mabel’s emotional responses, The Welcome Cookies will have young and old alike wanting to visit their local cafe to taste the welcome cookies.”
Love Four Reading (via Instagram)
“There’s a cookie recipe included on the last page. This is a sweet story with themes of friendship, community and change”
Get.kids.Booked
“I love the emotional element to this story and how that changes for Mabel. The characters are endearing and of course, I love that there is cookie decorating! The recipe is even included in the back.”
Kat_Bookworm
“Covering important topics of adapting, new beginnings and community, this book certainly opened up conversations with my kids about emotions and coping with change. Mstr 6 & Mstr 5 “love the cookies” and the book has a big thumbs up from them..”
In The Good Books Blog
“This story shows how changes can be good for us, and it also shows the importance of accepting differences. And it includes a yummy recipe to make your own Welcome Cookies!”
The Bottom Shelf, Teacher Librarian
“This story, based on the author’s daughter’s experiences, helps young readers understand that sometimes change is inevitable and we miss what was, often the new can be as good as the old, perhaps even better. So while what was can be a precious memory, there are new memories to be made and we can actively make these.”
