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The particular sadness of lemon cake

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On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents' attention, bites into her mother's homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother's emotions in the cake. She discovers t...

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Main Author: Bender, Aimee
Corporate Author: OverDrive, Inc
Format: Audiobooks eAudiobook Downloads eAudiobook
Language:English
Published: [Westminster, Md.] : Books on Tape, 2010.
Subjects:
Taste > Fiction.
Family secrets > Fiction.
Downloadable audio books.
Psychological fiction.
Coming-of-age fiction.
Online Access:Go to Downloadable Audiobook Here
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Summary:On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents' attention, bites into her mother's homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother's emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother--her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother--tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose. The curse her gift has bestowed is the secret knowledge all families keep hidden--her mother's life outside the home, her father's detachment, her brother's clash with the world. Yet as Rose grows up she learns to harness her gift and becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.
Item Description:Downloadable audio file.
Title from: Title details screen.
Unabridged.
Duration: 8:52:01.
Playing Time:08:52:01
Format:Requires OverDrive Media Console (file size: 127422 KB).
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
ISBN:9780307737168
0307737160
9780307737144
0307737144
Author Notes:As a child, Aimee Bender enjoyed reading fairy tales, particularly the stories of Hans Christian Andersen. She began creating her own stories, and later, as an elementary school teacher, she enjoyed telling her students both traditional fairy tales and stories she had made up herself. Eventually, she began writing short stories, which have been published in a variety of magazines, including Granta, GQ, Story, and The Antioch Review. Her first book, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, a collection of her stories, was published in 1998.

Bender's work is intended for adults rather than children, but many of her short stories could be described as contemporary fairy tales. Bender's stories often include some of the same elements that she enjoyed encountering in fairy tales, such as of magic, fantasy, surprise, humor, and absurdity.

Although she has found success as a writer, Bender continues to teach because she enjoys the interaction with others and feels she needs that contact to balance the solitude that is required for her writing. In addition to teaching elementary school, she has taught in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program and in the writing program at the University of California at Irvine, where she received her M.F.A.

Bender lives in Los Angeles.

(Bowker Author Biography)

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