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Oh Look, a Cake! by J.C. McKee

It’s a fun, simple, “sweet” read, with a devilish twist at the end that will appeal to the older elementary kids as well as the young ones. When Sloth and Lemur happen upon a rather lovely cake, they ponder having a party, but all the guests they consider inviting seem problematic in one way or another. They finally conclude there’s just no one left to eat it except themselves. As they lay about among the crumbs with full bellies, along comes Tiger, outraged that the lovely cake he’d made himself for his birthday is gone. Sloth apologizes, but Tiger tells them not to worry…(page turn)…he can still get it back…(page turn)… And the final page just shows the Tiger walking away with a satisfied expression from the plate of cake crumbs, with no Sloth or Lemur in sight. Draw your own conclusions. I like that it leaves it open to the readers’ interpretations — a good opportunity to talk about inference. It reminds me a bit of my favorite Jon Klassen books. My only critique is that it is told entirely in dialogue without any quotation marks or he said/she said (it uses different fonts to distinguish who says what), and it could have been helpful if the different fonts were a little more different to be really clear.