A shy teenager attempts to express how she really feels through the confections she makes at her family's pasteleria. A tourist from Montenegro desperately seeks a magic soup dumpling that could cure his fear of death. An aspiring chef realizes that butter and soul are the key ingredients to win a cooking competition that could win him the money to save his mother's life.

Welcome to Hungry Hearts Row, where the answers to most of life's hard questions are kneaded, rolled, baked. Where a typical greeting is, "Have you had anything to eat?" Where magic and food and love are sometimes one and the same.

Told in interconnected short stories, Hungry Hearts explores the many meanings food can take on beyond mere nourishment. It can symbolize love and despair, family and culture, belonging and home.

This book is aimed at children at US 7th grade+.

This book has been graded for interest at 12-18 years.

There are 368 pages in this book.

It is aimed at Young Adult readers. The term Young Adult (YA) is used for books which have the following characteristics: (1) aimed at ages 12-18 years, US grades 7-12, UK school years 8-15, (2) around 50-75k words long, (3) main character is aged 12-18 years, (4) topics include self-reflection, internal conflict vs external, analyzing life and its meaning, (5) point of view is often in the first person, and (6) swearing, violence, romance and sexuality are allowed.

This book was published in 2020 by Simon & Schuster .

Caroline Tung Richmond is the award-winning author of The Only Thing to Fear , The Darkest Hour , and Live in Infamy , and the coeditor of Hungry Hearts . She's also the program director of We Need Diverse Books, a nonprofit that promotes diversity in children's literature. A self-proclaimed history nerd and cookie connoisseur, Caroline lives with her family in the Washington, DC, area. Visit her online at CarolineTRichmond. com. Elsie Chapman grew up in Prince George, British Columbia, before graduating from the University of British Columbia with a bachelor of arts in English literature. She currently lives in Tokyo with her husband and children. She is the author of the young adult thrillers Dualed and Divided. Sara Farizan is an Iranian American writer and ardent basketball fan who was born in and lives near Boston. The award-winning author of If You Could Be Mine and Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel, she has an MFA from Lesley University and a BA in film and media studies from American University. Here to Stay is her third novel. Other contributors include Sandhya Menon, S. K. Ali, Rin Chupeco, Anna-Marie McLemore, Rebecca Roanhorse, Sara Farzian, Jay Coles, Adi Alsaid, Sangu Mandanna, Phoebe North, and Karuna Riazi.