Pat-a-Cake Baby

Mother-daughter team Joyce and Polly Dunbar offer a sweet and whimsical confection for babies, inspired by a nursery rhyme.

It’s late at night, and everyone is sleeping—except for pat-a-cake baby! All dressed up in his chef’s coat and hat, baby wants to make a very special cake. Time to wake up Candy baby, Jelly baby, and Allsorts baby—miniature cherubic figures who float through the pages to lend a hand. One by one, they add ingredients, from glitzy sugar to yolky jokey eggs, until it’s time to bake, pat, and decorate the cake. Finally it’s ready for tasting, just in time for a special guest (the man in the moon!) to have a slice. This surreal and colorful treat is just right for sending little ones off to dreamland.Polly Dunbar’s pictures are a confectionary dream: ingredients fly around the pages in balletic swoops, the typography dances, and the babies’ energy is boundless—it’s a candy-coated version of Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen. Joyce Dunbar’s text has only a passing connection to the Mother Goose rhyme, and her baking-themed wordplay (“It’s hulla-balloony-moon-time!”) is the literary equivalent of a sugar high.
—Publishers Weekly

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

By inviting audience participation in each rollicking step and possibly pairing it with an actual baking activity, this sweet story can be a treat.
—School Library Journal
Bilderbuch; TEA