Turnip Cake, Anyone? A Birthday for Cow by Jan Thomas

Pig and Mouse have volunteered to make the birthday cake!

"THE BEST EVER!"

Pig and Mouse assemble their utensils: measuring cups, a big bowl, whisks and spoons, and a big baking pan. Pig and Mouse assemble their ingredients: eggs, milk, flour and sugar. But Duck has one more.

"AND A TURNIP?"

Mouse nixes the turnip. Now they have to mix the ingredients with ...

A TURNIP?

NO. A SPOON! Mouse says.

The bakers are ready to put the pan of cake batter into the oven.

"CAN A TURNIP GO IN, TOO?" DUCK INQUIRES.

Yikes, No way, Duck! But when the fragrant cake is done, they have to put something on top of it.

"NO TURNIPS, DUCK!"

Mouse suggests birthday candles! And just in time, the birthday cake is ready. And here comes Cow, right on cue!

"IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS?" SAYS COW.

And, Yes, dear reader, COW means ....

The turnip, just for him!

It's different strokes for different critters, in Jan Thomas' early readers' hilarious noodle tale, A Birthday for Cow! (The Giggle Gang)(The Giggle Gang) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), in which Cow gets his heart's delight, and Mouse and Pig get to eat their own cake all by themselves. Everyone gets what they want. It's a simple story of the best birthday party EVER! With its thick blackline drawings and multicolored pastel pages, this clever noodle tale offers plenty of visual clues and repetition of key words to help beginning readers tackle reading this story all by themselves.

And now... is there leftover cake for successful readers?

Pair this classic with Jan Thomas' other delightfully silly beginner reader books, such as What Is Chasing Duck? (The Giggle Gang) and What Will Fat Cat Sit On? (The Giggle Gang)

Summertime Pail Tale! Blueberry Cake by Sarah Dillard

"BLUEBERRY CAKE?"

Baby Bear and Mama Bear are in the kitchen, and Baby Bear knows just what he wants to eat. But Mama knows what they need to fill that request. She hands Baby Bear a big red bucket.

"BLUEBERRIES."

Baby Bear sets off and makes his way through the woods until he finds a big field of blueberry bushes and fills his red pail with the juicy fruit, only to find the big juicy blueberries are just too tempting. He eats all he can hold and then jumps up to chase a butterfly, spilling the rest of the berries.

Baby Bear tries to placate Mama Bear by filling the pail with fresh-picked flowers, heading back home, and is seemingly surprised and sad that there are no berries in his bucket. At the door Mama Bear gives him THE LOOK--

"NO BLUEBERRIES?"

"NO BLUEBERRY CAKE!!"

Sadly Baby Bear goes to bed cake-less, but when he wakes up at dawn, he knows just what to do to get his blueberry cake. And when Mama Bear comes down to the kitchen, there is the red pail, full to the brink with blueberries. And SOON, there is...

BLUEBERRY CAKE!

Sarah Dillard's brand-new Blueberry Cake (Aladdin Books, 2021) provides a tasteful story with minimalist text and skillfully drawn illustrations that tell the story sweetly for preschoolers and early readers, but with a premise as old as human hunter-gatherers.

The interplay between mother and child is deliciously told with simple lines and facial expressions by author-illustrator Dillard, whose endearing afterword describes happy childhood visits to her grandmother's Maine coast kitchen where blueberry cake was also on the menu. This one is perfect for sharing with preschoolers and primary readers alike. Adds Booklist, "Dillard’s latest picture book shows how much can be done with a limited number of words (blueberry, blueberries, cake, flowers, oh, no, and applesauce), a period, a question mark, and an exclamation point.

For fruitful fall reads, share this one with Robert McClosky's classic, Blueberries for Sal, and taking the hint from Baby Bear's closing request for applesauce, with Gail Gibbons' evergreen The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree.

Wait Just a Mini-Moment!! Mini Rabbit Is NOT LOST by John Bond

Mini Rabbit and Mother Rabbit are making a cake.

"CAKE! CAKE! CAKE!" chants Mini Rabbit!

But then Mother Rabbit has sad news. They are fresh out of berries!

But Mini Rabbit is adamant!

"I will find berries!"

Strapping on his little red backpack, Mini Rabbit hops off in search of that quintessential ingredient.

But there are no berries in the berry patch.

Mini Rabbit forges on. Inquisitive animals query Mini Rabbit about what he's doing, but this resolute rabbit pushes on, crossing prairies, rowing rivers, and scaling rocky mountainsides, rappelling down from snowy precipices, persevering in his dogged quest for berries. At last he discovers a deep cave and inside he finds--one berry.

And then from far away across the world, Mini Rabbit catches the scent of--Mother Rabbit's cake!

It's berry cake at last. But--What? No ice cream?

Some of us are never satisfied, as with John Bond's quixotic character in his Mini Rabbit Is Not Lost (Neal Porter Books, 2019). In this heroic quest, author-illustrator Bond sets his stylized and stylish but relentless little figure within a rather realistic background of prairies, forests, an ocean with a lighthouse, and high mountain peaks, tiny in a vast landscape, but as unstoppable as that famous battery bunny. Savvy readers will chuckle as they spot who's harvested all the berries as flocks of dark birds fly by with berries in their beaks. Be sure you've got all the ingredients for cake when you share this one!"Charming and whimsical—sure to bring smiles, says Kirkus Reviews.

Just Desserts? I Will Chomp You! by Jory John

YOU HAVE BEEN OFFICIALLY WARNED.

IF YOU TURN ANY MORE PAGES, I WILL CHOMP YOU!

The monster is this book is a cake-coveting curmudgeon. He's got his stash of fancy baked goods hidden at the end of the book, and if the would-be reader tries to turn all the pages to get to it, Monster will eat him first!

Bystanders--a bird, a bunny, and a frog--are drawn to the scene by all the commotion. But the pages continue to be turned.

QUIT IT!

CHOMP!

The critters flee and the monster clearly misses his target. He sees he must change his tactics.

He tries asking nicely. It's nothing personal, he says. Try some alternative reading, he pleads. He's only protecting his special collection of cakes at the end of the book, he confides. He'll even give the reader half his cake if he will stop, he wheedles.

But still, the pages keep turning. Nothing works, so he has no choice left but to... CHOMP ALL HIS STASH FIRST! But even that has its problems.

MY STOMACH HURTS!

Author John Jory makes the most of the metafiction possibilities in his I Will Chomp You! (Random House, 2015). Artist Bob Shea, master of toothy sharks, carnivorous little dinosaurs, and other chomping picture book champs, cheerfully provides the chompmeister for this story--a snaggle-toothed, evil-eyed bumbler of a blue monster, done up in fat black-line and strong colored illustrations, who misses his target every time in a way sure to create waves of giggles among the preschool set. It's a natural for read-aloud hams who love to sink their, er, teeth into a juicy character which will have the audience chiming in on every CHOMP!