Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Ella Takes the Cake
Picture Book Series
For ages 4 to 6
Scholastic, 2005 ISBN: 978-0439627948
It is the summer vacation and Ella is helping her mother in the bakery, or at least she is trying to. The problem is that Ella is a rather small elephant and is too young to take hot trays of bread out of the oven or cut slices of cake with a sharp knife. When Mr. Banjo the delivery man once again forgets one of the cakes, Ella offers to take the cake to the customer, Captain Kernel, herself. Quickly she ties a wagon to her bicycle and she sets off for the lighthouse.
Soon after leaving the bakery Ella meets her friend Belinda. In her usual way Belinda takes over, insisting that there is plenty of room for her and the large cake in the wagon. On they go with Ella pulling the wagon. Then Belinda offers to take Mr. Sneed's books to the library. Of course Ella is the one who has to pull the books in the wagon (along with large Belinda and the cake). Not long after they leave Mr. Sneed Belinda decides to go to the market and she leaves poor Ella with the job of getting the books to the library and the cake to the lighthouse.
In this beautiful picture book with its vintage style colored pencil artwork, Ella the elephant proves to herself, and to others, that there are jobs that she can do even if she is still quite small. Young children will be delighted to see this plucky little girl elephant -wearing her large hat - prevail even when it looks as if disaster is about to strike.
