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Monday, November 14, 2016

Cupcake Crime Wave! Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes by Kimberley and James Dean


PETE AND GUS WERE AS BUSY AS COULD BE.

THEY WERE GETTING READY FOR THE CUPCAKE PARTY.

The busy bakers soon have a row of ten delectable-looking decorated cupcakes lined up on the windowsill to cool.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

Gus and Pete begin cleaning up the kitchen, when...

"OH, NO! SOME OF THE CUPCAKES ARE GONE!"

There are only eight cupcakes left. 10 - 8 =? Pete the Cat calculates. Two cupcakes have been confiscated by some malefactor! Who could it be? Pete postulates Squirrel. There are sprinkles under the window and Squirrel has a thing for sprinkles. But Squirrel has witnesses. She was downtown spelling in the spelling bee!

And while Pete the Cat and Gus the Duck are dithering, two more swiftly vanish. 8 - 2 = 6!

Pete and Gus abandon party prep and go into detective mode. Outside the scene-of-the-crime sill, they detect a trace of three-toed tracks leading away from the window! Could the thief be Alligator?

But Alligator has an alibi. And while they are interrogating him, four more cupcakes are purloined!

Some fast subtraction follows: 6 - 4 = 2! Then they spot a ladder nearby, and immediately they suspect low-to-the-ground turtle.

"IT CAN'T BE ME. I WAS SWIMMING IN THE SEA!" IS TURTLE'S PLEA.

And when they turn back toward Pete's house, the truth is revealed. The last two cupcakes seem to have been stolen! 2 - 2 = 0! Could the perpetrator be Grumpy Toad?

It's some subtraction sleuthing for Pete the Cat, in his latest picture book adventure by the dynamic duo, Kimberley and James Dean's Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes (Harper, 2016). Ever since that blueberry pie cooling on the windowsill disappeared in Crosby Bonsall's classic I-Can-Read mystery, The Case of the Hungry Stranger (I Can Read Level 2), the who-got-the-goodies mysteries have been popular fare for primary readers, and James Dean's optimistic Pete the Cat cuts his detective teeth on this new cupcake crime story. Kimberley Dean provides the rhyming couplets, and James Dean provides the colorful illustrations in his signature style in this already top-selling mathematical mystery for their myriad fans.

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