Batter Royale, cooking up timeliness graphic novel goodness

Charming is such a nice and underused way to describe a graphic novel. A charming graphic novel is one that’s happy, might (or might not) teach a lesson, has a shareability factor, and is just fun to read. With that build-up, it’s no spoiler alert that Batter Royale is a very easygoing, affable, and charming graphic novel that’ll be in the sweet spot for ages eight and up.

It also benefits from a title that alludes to its realm of competition but could also be associated with wrestling. However, for graphic novel fans to fall into that latter pothole they’d have to overlook the book’s cover, which clearly shows three chefs in various stages of desert preparation. One has a four-tier cake, the other a one-layer chocolate cake, and the third one is stirring up some batter, thus the title.

Batter Royale also benefits from the fact that those ages love cooking reality shows. Oy, our 11-year-old loves watching them on Netflix and is quick to recount aspects of various challenges or which team he’s rooting for. If only said interest in cooking translated into him actually wanting to help prepare meals for the family, but not quite yet.

Rose is a 17-year-old waitress who lives in a small town. She’s always loved to cook, but the limited population of her area impacts the number of restaurants and the one where she’s currently working already has a chef. Thankfully the restaurant where she’s working also has a cute boy who is the owner’s son. The two teens quickly form a keen friendship due to their love of cooking and are whipping up deserts in the kitchen for fun after work.

One day a very famous food critic arrives at the restaurant to review some of the establishment’s go-to deserts. Rose, with a little assistance from Fred cooks up one of her own creations and put it on the plate for the critic, who loves it so much that she insists that the two of them compete in an upcoming reality show. The competition is taking place in London with a handful of other young chefs, each of which with their own particular work ethic.

The people on each team have to work together because eliminations happen after each bake-off. As Rose and Fred continue in the contest they realize that they’re great partners, in addition to having a crush on each other. If this book were published 25 years ago it would already be a rom-com starring Julia Roberts. For today’s box office, I don’t know who the cute leads would be, but they’d have charming chemistry, funny banter, and a plot that would be predictable, but in a romantic manner that’s more sweet than annoying.

Batter Royale is that graphic novel. It’s so charming (there’s that adjective again) that readers, mainly girls, aged eight and up will effortlessly fall under its spell. They’ll identify with a character, say that one of the competing chefs reminds them of a friend of theirs, and share the book with a buddy. For the erstwhile budding chefs, there are even a handful of real recipes, including macrons, for those young bakers to try it out for themselves.

Batter Royale is by Leisl Adams and is available on Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams Books.

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