Elliot
Bakes a Cake
Written and illustrated by: Andrea Beck
Review by: Robin
Hatfield
Everyone needs a
birthday cake and Lionel is no exception. Elliot and
his friends want to make him a special cake. This humorous story gives a
new meaning to the phrase "too many cooks". Beaverton pulls out a
recipe card and Elliot, Socks, Amy and Paisley quickly find everything
they will need to bake the cake. The recipe instructions were a little
hard to understand for the friends. Beaverton said, "We need to
separate the eggs". Elliot asks him what that means. Socks laughed
and gets out two teacups and puts an egg into each one. Elliot thought
the eggs should be cracked open. Beaverton continues reading the
recipe-now cream the butter. "How do we do that?" asks Elliot.
Paisley tells him it is simple and puts the butter in a bowl and pours
cream on top of it. He gets discouraged when the ingredients won't mix
together. Amy's turn is next and she adds the sugar and starts to stir.
The friends are making progress now and finally get the mixture to look like
batter. They pour the batter into a pan and slide it into the oven. As
they watch the cake bake, Elliot wonders how they will know when to take it
out. Beaverton reads the card and tells the group the cake will be done
when it springs up by being touched in the middle. The first time they
check the cake, it only wobbles when they touch it, so they let it bake
awhile longer. The second time, Elliot touched the middle and the cake
didn't spring, it didn't move at all. They let the cake continue to bake
and start making the icing. Once the icing is ready, they take the cake
out and everyone is horrified. Lionel's cake is burnt! What would they
do now? Elliot has an idea-cut the burnt parts off. When he is finished,
the cake is rather small.
The friends work together to make the cake
special. They cut it into three layers and Amy spreads jam on two of the
layers and Paisley covered the top with the icing. Candles and a card
are the finishing touches. Now the cake is ready to take to Lionel.
Carefully, they make their way upstairs to surprise Lionel. How could he
not have known what was going on in the kitchen? They did surprise him!
Everyone shares the tiny cake and agrees that it is the best cake they
have ever had.
This story illustrates how much fun friends can
have when they work
together to do something nice. A perfect book for the preschooler who
loves to help in the kitchen!
Buy
Now
