If you are new to the Book & Cook Club, welcome! I’m so glad you found this corner of the internet where we enjoy good books and good food together! Each month, I try to feature a chapter book appropriate for upper elementary aged kids along with a recipe inspired by the book. The featured recipe is easy for kids to make on their own or with a little adult help and I also include a printable sheet of questions to discuss about the book. These books, recipes, and discussions would be good for a group of 8-12 year olds, a parent and child, siblings, or a whole family with kids this age! To print any of the recipes, just click the printer icon at the top of the recipe for a printable version. To print the discussion questions for Ramona Quimby, Age 8 , click on the image or link below:

For our Book & Cook Club this month, I have chosen one of my childhood favorites that is perfect for back-to-school season: Ramona Quimby, Age 8. This was one of those books that I returned to again and again growing up. Beverly Cleary had the knack of capturing the experience of being an 8-year old in a way that few other writers could. She never shied away from portraying the big feelings that children experience, a fact that I found comforting as a child with a lot of anxiety. I sympathized deeply with each of Ramona’s triumphs, embarrassments, trials, and joys. One of my favorite scenes in Ramona Quimby, Age 8, then and now, is the time when Ramona and her sister Beezus have to cook dinner for their family after complaining about their mother’s cooking. I was firmly in the “picky eater” category as a child, so I understood Ramona’s disgust at being asked to eat tongue for dinner and also her surprise at being asked to cook dinner. But I also felt excited by the thought of getting to have the kitchen all to myself and to be able to cook dinner all alone! I loved cooking from the time I was young and the thought of getting to set a menu and cook it from scratch was intriguing to me. I laugh now at how naive I was (and Beezus and Ramona were) in thinking that making dinner for a family every night is as easy as throwing something in a pan. As Beezus and Ramona quickly discover, there is a lot more planning and timing needed than it seems to cook a meal for 4 people. Yet, in the end, they manage to cook an edible meal of chicken in yogurt, cornbread, rice, and carrot sticks with baked pears for dessert. Not bad for an 8 and 12 year old!

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I have tried to create a chicken recipe here that sticks fairly closely to the ingredients used by Ramona and Beezus and is easy for older kids to make almost on their own. As a child, I thought chicken in yogurt sounded disgusting, but I now often use yogurt as a marinade before baking or grilling chicken as it tenderizes the chicken and gives a wonderful, tangy flavor. My recipe calls for boneless skinless thighs so you don’t even have to pull the skin off with tongs as Beezus and Ramona do! I also used paprika, as Ramona’s mom suggests, instead of the spicier chili powder that the girls use in the book, although I think chili powder would also be delicious if your family likes more spice. Just add some rice, cornbread, and carrot sticks and you have a delicious family meal just like Ramona made.

Yogurt and Lemon Sheet Pan Chicken Thighs