Review Detail

I Love Cake!: Starring Rabbit, Porcupine, and Moose

Kids Fiction 279

What's not to love about cake?

March 26, 2016

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

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Characters

N/A

Writing Style

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Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

N/A

Best friends Rabbit, Porcupine and Moose have great fun frolicking about Sweet Valley Woods. When Rabbit's birthday rolls around, she invites her friends to a party. They have a lot of fun playing games, but when it comes time for the cake, they find it is gone. Moose has been acting suspiciously, and after initially denying having eaten the cake, confesses to doing so. He feels bad, and Rabbit and Porcupine are angry with him. He goes home to think about what he has done, and decides to bake another cake to share with his friends. They forgive him, and everyone enjoys the cake.

Good Points

Like a modern day Frog and Toad, I Love Cake teaches a gentle lesson about being tempted to do the wrong thing, and how to make things right if you have. In typical three-year-old fashion, Moose denies having eaten the cake even though he is covered in crumbs and lets out a huge, cake scented burp. This reminded me of Ainslie Pryor's 1989 Baby Blue Cat and the Whole Batch of Cookies-- Baby Blue Cat and Moose would get along really well, although there would always be a critical shortage of baked goods!

The illustrations are exuberant and full of motion. The bright colors add to the happy atmosphere of friends playing together, and I liked how each of them got to say something on almost every page. This would be a great feature to have a child in charge of reading. What does Moose say on this page? What does Rabbit say? The story also makes a great springboard for discussion about how important it is to wait for things and to share them with friends.