“Everything was the same in Samesville,” begins this tale by Christina Tosi, two-time James Beard Award-winning chef and owner of bakery chain Milk Bar. In black-and-white illustrations, a girl named Sammi ponders what cake to make. The answer in Samesville is always: vanilla with chocolate frosting. Sammi places a wish under her pillow for things not to be the same.
Sammi dreams in vivid color, and wakes up to her room transformed. There’s also a cookbook under her pillow, full of new cakes and ingredients.
The world outside has changed, too, and Wizard-of-Oz-like, is now in full color. Not only have the colors changed, but all the people are also unique individuals. We see Sammi gathering her friends, some of whom seem gender creative (including overall-clad Sammi herself). The book is being pitched as “full of diversity in race, ability, and gender expression,” so this is intentional, although no identities are specified in the text. A couple of the friends could be read as nonbinary, too, so I’m tagging this as such, although it’s up to readers how to view them. (No pronouns are used, except for Sammi.)
Sammi and her friends descend on Sammi’s house to bake a cake—not vanilla!—with ingredients including pretzels, cereal, marshmallows, strawberries, and peanut butter. Their cake was different, full of color and flavor, and “Beautiful and individual, just like Sammi and her friends.”
Sammi’s friends return to their homes and continue to bake creatively with their families. Samesville would never be the same.
Sammi is White; her friends are a variety of racial identities. One wears a cochlear implant. A final page includes a recipe for strawberry frosting.
A sweet (literally!) story celebrating creativity and individuality, with a subtle message reminding parents to let their kids get a little messy sometimes.
