about the book
In a world where everyone has a Talent with a capital T, eleven-year-old Cadence, better known as Cady, is the best in the world at baking cakes. She can make the perfect cake to match anyone’s personality. She lives at Miss Mallory’s Home for Lost Girls in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Miss Mallory’s Talent is connecting orphans with families that are best for them—but with Cady her Talent seems to be failing, as Cady strikes out with one after another new families and she returns to the home every time.
There are others who are not quite sure of their Talents yet, like ten-year-old Marigold Asher and the mysterious “V”; or there are some like her brothers, Will and Zane, whose Talents seem hardly worth it, like getting lost and being able to spit really well. Their mother’s talent is in knitting.
Unbeknownst to them all, fate has conspired to bring them together at the Lost Luggage Emporium, where the Owner has figured out a way to steal other people’s Talents….
about the author
Eight years old and bored, Lisa Graff produced her first book in an hour—a five-page crayon-illustrated creation entitled The Strangest Flower. She continued to write stories and plays, often performing the melodramas. She always played the sinister mustached villain. Her brother was a genius and to compete, Lisa read everything—including Moby Dick in third grade.
Studying linguistics in Italy, she translated one of her children’s novels and discovered three things. She needed help with her Italian, she was a terrible writer, and she loved to write! In New York, Lisa earned a graduate degree in creative writing for children and met an agent who helped her get her first novel published.
Lisa still lives in New York where she is an editor at a publishing house. She lives with a slightly insane cat and plays bocce ball badly in her spare time. She enjoys blogging with readers, librarians, and other authors. She loves raspberries, snow globes and board games. Lisa has trouble telling her left hand from her right, reading maps, and doing crossword puzzles. She also uses too many exclamation points!!!!!!
Sources:
Author website
Author interview : School Library Journal
Also by Lisa Graff:
Absolutely Almost. Philomel. 2014.
Double Dog Dare. Philomel. 2012.
Sophie Simon Solves Them All. Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. 2010.
Umbrella Summer. Laura Geringer Books. 2009.
The Life and Crimes of Benetta Wallflower. Laura Geringer Books. 2008.
The Thing about Georgie. Laura Geringer Books. 2007.
read more!
Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff
Albie has a long list of things he has never been the best at: being smartest, tallest, athletic, artistic, musical. In fact, he thinks he is good at almost nothing. Then a new babysitter named Calista comes along and helps him figure out the things he is good at. Albie learns to take pride in himself, and makes new friends along the way.
Beholding Bee by Kimberly Newton Fusco
Bee, an orphan, lives and works with a carnival, sleeping every day in the back of a tractor trailer. When her only friend is sent to work at another carnival, Bee knows she has to find a better way to live. Two strange women, Mrs. Swift and Mrs. Potter, take her in, but it seems like only Bee can see them….
Remarkable by Lizzie K. Foley
Since Jane is average, he is excluded from the town of Remarkable’s School for the Remarkably Gifted. At the public school, she teams up with the trouble-making Grimlet twins on a series of adventures involving an out-of-control science fair project, a pirate captain on the run from a mutinous crew, a lonely dentist, and Remarkable’s beloved lake monster, Lucky.