Janis Flint-Ferguson (KLIATT Review, July 2007 (Vol. 41, No. 4))
Molly and Cassie pair up for an assignment at the Sunshine Day High School and good things do not come from the pairing. Molly is sarcastic and a loner; Cassie oozes friendship and positive attitude, and in the first of many fights, the two throw food and disrupt the cafeteria. As an opportunity to adjust their attitude, the principal, a former hippie, assigns the girls to the cafeteria where they are to work together. Once they can achieve five days of satisfactory results on the student survey they will be done with the duty. Unfortunately, the original food fight only gets them started and the fact that they both have a crush on the same boy doesn’t help the lunch menus. They don’t work well together and the cafeteria supervisor takes early retirement, moving the girls from assistants to top management. How hard can opening a few cans be? But the girls make things decidedly worse before they learn that food preparation takes effort and attention. First, though, they work hard to humiliate each other and then are tricked into using deception to win over the principal. However, with the help of a fellow student Clyde, who finds a talent for pastries, the girls step up to the challenge and to the start of a true friendship. There is a light-hearted, High School Musical quality to the novel but the lessons learned and a few recipes shared make this an entertaining read. Category: Hardcover Fiction. KLIATT Codes: JS--Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2007, Penguin, Dutton, 224p., $16.99. Ages 12 to 18.

Deborah Stevenson (The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, September 2007 (Vol. 61, No. 1))
It all starts when Molly is partnered with perky Cassie for a writing assignment; Molly, a sardonic outsider, resists the teaming but can’t resist needling Cassie, and the discord escalates into a lunchroom food fight. When the ex-hippie principal of their crunchy-granola private school assigns the girls to work together in the cafeteria, their continued hostilities drive away the head of the cafeteria, Mrs. Zetz, and most of her staff; the principal then solves the situation by putting Molly and Cassie in charge of the cafeteria until such time as the students deem their food better than Mrs. Zetz’s. Narrator Molly is a creature seen often in life but rarely in books, the smug and judgmental outsider who’s convinced that her disaffection proves her superiority; while the book makes the case that her meanness covers up insecurity, it’s also clear she simply finds it enjoyable, and readers will likely take a certain pleasure in her unfettered snarkiness. There’s a survival-story element of appeal to watching the girls attempt to keep themselves afloat in the kitchen, and several secondary characters, such as nerdy but endearing Clyde, who turns out to be a whiz at making desserts, are savory additions. Unfortunately, the plot is overcomplicated, with an in-house saboteur and a final head-to-head with Mrs. Zetz, as well as contrived not only in its initial set-up but also in the girls’ eventual championing of good nutrition as a cafeteria cause, and Molly is less amusing when she predictably softens up. The premise is still an appetizing one, however, and many readers will look down at their dubious lunch trays and think that they too could do better. Review Code: Ad -- Additional book of acceptable quality for collections needing more material in the area. (c) Copyright 2006, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2007, Dutton, 272p; Reviewed from galleys, $16.99. Grades 7-10.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Spring 2008)
Molly is a blue-haired, acid-tongued Scrooge; Cassie is a perky cheerleader type. Their forced partnership on a school project leads to a food fight that culminates in the girls taking over the lunch program as punishment. (The hippie-funded private school setting makes the punishment believable.) Bradley keeps things pleasantly light, and her snappy, character-defining dialogue and dry situational humor are spot-on. Category: Older Fiction. 2007, Dutton, 277pp, 16.99. Ages 12 to 14. Rating: 2: Superior, well above average.