PAT-A-CAKE BABY

Baby bakes.

This Caucasian baby, in a white onesie and a chef’s hat, is a self-proclaimed “cookie baby [and] pat-a-cake baby.” After nightfall, the baby proceeds to the kitchen, where three tiny candy friends are waiting. The rollicking, rhythmic text, which reads aloud in a most bouncy and satisfying way, dances and giggles all over the pages. Butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour are shaken and strewn and sifted by baby and companions. The cake is baked and iced and served so deliciously that the Man in the Moon comes to share. Pastel candy colors abound, with stars and sprinkles. Wordplay is everywhere; the baby happily declares that they’re “frisking while we’re whisking ’til it’s flitter flotter fluffy.” After the cake’s in the oven, who can resist? “We’re scraping out the bowl / with an icky flicky licky / and oops we lick each other / and all of us are sticky.” This is accompanied by an image of baby and buddies all in the mixing bowl, licking their fingers. Perspective bends and stretches like a fun-house mirror (or taffy), and the relative sizes of kitchen tools and objects are a little dizzying. It’s good fun but definitely not quiet bedtime reading, especially since it concludes with multicolored capital letters spelling out “IT’S EATING TIME!”

A sweet confection through and through, from the glitter on the cover to the nonpareils on the endpapers.