Snickerdoodle Takes the Cake by Ethan Long (review)

There's a cake on the kitchen counter: Mom's Famous Lemon Poppy Seed Cake with Buttercream Icing, Snickerdoodle's favorite. There's also a note on the cake that says "Do Not Touch!" and Snickerdoodle knows the cake is for Na Na's birthday. He can't resist just one taste, though (which just leaves him wanting more), and proximity leads to a cake-ruining accident. Luckily Snickerdoodle has a plan: he and his siblings bake a new cake to take to Na Na and Pop Pop's house—just as delicious, if not as pretty as Mom's. Soft digital lines give the whole chinchilla family touchably textured fur, and Mom's Famous Lemon Poppy Seed Cake looks luscious in pastel yellow and pink. Snickerdoodle tries valiantly to resist his desire to dig into the special cake in energetic illustrations that capture the allure of a forbidden treat, from a closely framed sequence of Snickerdoodle getting as close as he can to the cake to smell it to a spread filled with bubble-letter "yum"s as he leaps for joy after finally tasting it, his pink tongue hanging out. Any kid with a sweet tooth will relate, and they'll appreciate that Snickerdoodle's only punishment for his morning cake binge is to make a new cake for Na Na—which he gets to help eat, too.