The healing power of food is more then just a bowl of chicken soup for a cold or a casserole in the oven to help someone heal after a hospital stay. It is our desire to do more through nourishment. For Gretchen Holt-Witt the healing power of food is translating bake sales into money to fund pediatric cancer research.

Her Best Bake Sale Cookbook (Wiley 2011) is filled with easy-to-follow and easy-to-sell recipes and a heart-warming story of how she and her friends and friends of friends baked 96,000 cookies one holiday and kept going.

Her son Liam was diagnosed with cancer at 18 months old, and she realized that researchers needed funds to continue their work:

Our mission of raising awareness and funds for pediatric cancer research through bake sales inspires others to change the world of pediatric cancer one bake sale at a time. And thousands of bake sales later, we stand witness to the power of individual cookies, (p. xvi)

All author proceeds benefit Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. The recipes come from Sally Sampson, who founded the children’s magazine, ChopChop (see recent article ). The recipes are interspersed with stories of bake sales around the country as well as bake sale tips. The first chapter covers about cookies, from The Cookie that Started It All: Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies (p. 3) to Double-Chocolate Biscotti with Almonds (p. 21) and Lemon Zest Shortbread Cookies (p. 35) – Liam’s favorite.

The following chapters cover everything you could sell in a bake sale: Brownies and Bars, then Cupcakes and Dessert Cakes, Babycakes, Mini-loaves, muffins, and Scones, and finally Crunchy, Candy-like, and Salty Stuff. The photographs by Lucy Schaeffer are enticing with plenty of pictures of kids helping out. It’s just the kind of book to encourage kids to help others and learn about charity.

Buy this spiral-bound cookbook and help the cause: Cookies For Kids’ Cancer.