ALA Booklist

Julia and her best friend, Simca, adore cooking so much that nothing will stop them from having a joyous time in the kitchen. They cultivate happiness from food wherever they go, and when they notice that the adults around them are full of worries and grumpiness, they decide to use their culinary talents to solve the problem. They prepare a feast "cooked extra slowly to bring out the flavor of not hurrying," and the grown-ups greedily gobble it up. So greedily, in fact, that Julia and Simca decide to pen a cookbook, Mastering the Art of Childhood, to help adults reclaim the joy of youth. Morstad's illustrations consist mostly of stylized figures in delicate black outlines on crisp white pages, but Julia and Simca, as well as all their delectables, are full of rich color. While this picture book is not about Julia Child per se, it's impossible not to see the iconic chef in Morstad's depiction of a lanky girl in a neck scarf and curly brown coif, encouraging everyone to love food.

Horn Book (Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2015)

Maclear tells a fictional story about real-life friends and collaborators Julia Child and Simone Beck (a.k.a. Simca) as child chefs. Becoming silly, stubborn, and argumentative, grownups regress when they experience the duo's marvelous culinary delights. Stylish ink, gouache, and Photoshop illustrations capture the whimsy in a tale without much child appeal that plays loosely with Julia Child's iconic persona.

School Library Journal (Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 CST 2015)

K-Gr 2 This is the story of a girl named Julia who falls in love with French food at a young age (any resemblance to the real Julia Child is purely coincidental). She and her friend Simca take some classes and do a lot of experimentation and decide to pursue a future of cooking together. Because life "was filled with far too many grown-ups who did not know how to have a marvelous time," they are determined to follow their passion and to maintain their childlike joie de vivre. To do so, they create recipes for "growing young," which require no hurrying, and delicate spices "so that worries would disappear and wonders would rise to the surface." Despite some setbacks and needed modifications for clueless adults, Julia and Simca perfect a cookbook called Mastering the Art of Childhood . Morstad's lovely gouache and ink artwork has just the right proportions of sophistication and whimsy to suit the subject matter and to offer epicurious picture-book consumers something to sink their teeth in to. Bon Appétit!. Luann Toth , School Library Journal