THUNDER CAKE

Drawing again on her midwestern, Russian-American heritage, Polacco tells how Grandma comforts a child who is afraid of approaching thunder by distracting her with the making of a cake. It's from scratch—including getting eggs from the hens and an unusual ingredient, tomatoes, from the garden—but they get the cake done by the time the storm arrives. Polacco's illustrations—combining folk motifs, softly modeled faces, generous white space, and wonderfully evocative glimpses of the weather—are her best yet. There's a bit of poetic license in the countdown (sound travels one mile in five seconds, not five miles), but never mind. The cake recipe (with minimal instructions) is included. A heartwarming vignette.