Close to Famous

By Joan Bauer
Rating: 3 3/4 stars

Foster struggles in school because she can't read.  Her soldier father is dead.  Her mom has a great singing voice, but is stuck with Elvis impersonator Huck who makes her sing backup and isn't overly gentle.  The one thing Foster can do well is cook and bake.  Especially cupcakes.  Foster's goal is to become the first kid with her own cooking show.  Then when Huck becomes violent, Foster and her mom flee Memphis and end up in Culpepper, West Virginia, a little backwoods middle of nowhere town.  Foster isn't all that thrilled to be there, and she especially is worried that others will find out about her inability to read, no matter how nice the other kids she meets seem to be.  And how can a girl get her own cooking show when she is in the middle of nowhere?  But slowly and surely, the townsfolk begin to wrap themselves around Foster and her mom, but just when they begin to make the place their own, some ugly events rear their heads.  Can they ever get their own happy ending?  While some of the events may be a bit hard to swallow, the real magic here is the delightful characters.  Readers will want to find out what happens, especially since it comes wrapped in a shiny bow.