Love Sugar Magic Books 1 and 2 by Anna Meriano

Title: A Dash of Trouble/A Sprinkle of Spirits
Format: Hardcovers
Source: Library/purchase
Published: January 2019/February 2019
Publisher:  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 
Length: 320/309 pages 
Genre: Contemporary magic
Target Age: 8+
#OwnVoices:  Biracial Latinx (Mexican-American)
★★★★ 

Leonora Logroño’s family owns the most beloved bakery in Rose Hill, Texas, spending their days conjuring delicious cookies and cakes for any occasion. And no occasion is more important than the annual Dia de los Muertos festival. Leo hopes that this might be the year that she gets to help prepare for the big celebration—but, once again, she is told she’s too young.

Sneaking out of school and down to the bakery, she discovers that her mother, aunt, and four older sisters have in fact been keeping a big secret: they’re brujas—witches of Mexican ancestry—who pour a little bit of sweet magic into everything that they bake. Leo knows that she has magical ability as well and is more determined than ever to join the family business—even if she can’t let her mama and hermanas know about it yet. And when her best friend, Caroline, has a problem that needs solving, Leo has the perfect opportunity to try out her craft. It’s just one little spell, after all…what could possibly go wrong?

Description of A Dash of Trouble

Review

The Love Sugar Magic books exemplify some of my favourite elements of middle grade fiction: the fun combination of magic and baking, strong family relationships (with well-defined personalities for all seven family members!), a protagonist who demonstrates empathy and care for her best friend, and the incorporation of the protagonist’s family heritage and culture (Mexican in this case).

The next two paragraphs contains spoilers for the general plot of book one.

That ‘one little spell’ mentioned in A Dash of Trouble‘s description turns out to be a love spell. I initially thought, “Oh, a love potion gone wrong, sounds familiar”. I thought Leo’s friend Brent (who Caroline is crushing on) would fall in love with Leo and that would be the mess that would need to be resolved. So I was pleased when that didn’t happen. I laughed a lot Leo’s spells went wrong in ways I wasn’t expecting. (I also laughed at Brent’s love letters.)

Leo proves to be quite stubborn in attempting to resolve her messes. She refuses to ask for help in a manner that I think would feel realistic to middle grade readers. By the time she’s dealing with Brent stuck in the jar, she does make the decision to ask her sisters for help. If she hadn’t asked for help at that point, then I would have considered that a flaw in the narrative.

Upon seeing Caroline’s redecorated room with a photo of her and her parents when she was a baby: The only thing [Leo] hated more than feeling sad was having other people feel sad for her, and she didn’t want Caroline to know how sad Leo felt for the small Campbell family in the picture. Leo let herself stare at the picture for three seconds. One for Mr. Campbell, whose smile had no lines of worry; two for tiny baby Caroline, who was sound asleep and smiling; and three for Mrs. Campbell. Then she turned and looked at real-life Caroline and refused to let any sadness into her voice. “It looks great.”

Pg. 126-127

Something else I loved about Leo is how much she cares for her friend Caroline (whose mother recently passed away) and strives to support her. Caroline plays an even larger role in A Sprinkle of Spirits, which continues to explore themes of what it means to be Latinx (which Meriano discusses in the interview linked below). I enjoyed A Sprinkle of Spirits even more than A Dash of Trouble, because it didn’t have the silly love plot (which was well-written but anything ‘romance’ isn’t much to my taste) and it has more of what I loved in the first book (more magic, more family, more friendships).

The Bottom Line

The Love Sugar Magic series presents a delicious mix of middle grade’s best characteristics in the entertaining yet thoughtful magical happenings that Leo works through with her friends and family.

Further Information

• Author website
• Interview @ Brazos Bookstore
• Review by Cecilia @ Latinxs in Kid Lit (recommended for more information about the Latinx content of A Dash of Trouble)
• Review by Brenda @ Log Cabin Library
• Kirkus starred review
• SLJ starred review