Aimee Bender's "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake"

June 8, 2010— -- "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" is a story about a young girl who has a peculiar gift: sensing the emotional state of the person who prepared her food. She can tell one baker was late, while another hates his job. But it is the cake her mother bakes for her that becomes most troubling, as it opens a world of hidden emotions.

Read an excerpt of the book below, and then head to the "GMA" Library to find more good reads.

Excerpt

It happened for the first time on a Tuesday afternoon,a warm spring day in the flatlands near Hollywood, a lightbreeze moving east from the ocean and stirring the black- eyedpansy petals newly planted in our flower boxes.

My mother was home, baking me a cake. When I tripped upthe walkway, she opened the front door before I could knock.

How about a practice round? she said, leaning past the doorframe. She pulled me in for a hello hug, pressing me close to myfavorite of her aprons, the worn cotton one trimmed in sketchesof twinned red cherries.

On the kitchen counter, she'd set out the ingredients: Flourbag, sugar box, two brown eggs nestled in the grooves betweentiles. A yellow block of butter blurring at the edges. A shallowglass bowl of lemon peel. I toured the row. This was the week ofmy ninth birthday, and it had been a long day at school of cursivelessons, which I hated, and playground yelling about pointscoring, and the sunlit kitchen and my warm- eyed mother werewelcome arms, open. I dipped a finger into the wax baggie ofbrown- sugar crystals, murmured yes, please, yes.

She said there was about an hour to go, so I pulled out myspelling booklet. Can I help? I asked, spreading out pencils andpapers on the vinyl place mats.

Nah, said Mom, whisking the flour and baking sodatogether.

My birthday is in March, and that year it fell during anespecially bright spring week, vivid and clear in the narrow residentialstreets where we lived just a handful of blocks south ofSunset. The night- blooming jasmine that crawled up our neighbor'sfront gate released its heady scent at dusk, and to the north,the hills rolled charmingly over the horizon, houses tucked intothe brown. Soon, daylight savings time would arrive, and even atnearly nine, I associated my birthday with the first hint of summer,with the feeling in classrooms of open windows and lighterclothing and in a few months no more homework. My hair gotlighter in spring, from light brown to nearly blond, almost likemy mother's ponytail tassel. In the neighborhood gardens, theagapanthus plants started to push out their long green robotstems to open up to soft purples and blues.