Cinta (text), Jade Fang (illus), Who Ate the Cake?, Zoot Publishing, December 2015, 45pp., $20.00 (hbk) ISBN 9789881416216
I remember “choose your own adventure” books from when I was a kid and I thought they were pretty cool. It’s fun to have control over how the story pans out and you can read it again to see how different decisions change the ending. This illustrated children book follows the same idea, but for younger readers.
Who Ate the Cake? is about a girl named Sophie who wakes up on her 7th birthday to find her birthday cake missing. She decides to try to find it. There are crumbs and icing footprints leading in different directions and the reader gets to choose which way she should go. There are six different endings, and clear directions on how to navigate the book, which my seven-year-old twins had no trouble following. Each storyline is fantastical and the author uses descriptive language well to set the scene and create suspense.
There are illustrations on every page and a good mix of full-page drawings with smaller pictures, although I felt the drawings were quite dark for a young audience.
Overall, I felt the book was too wordy for a picture book, with details included that detracted from the story, making it easy to lose the attention of young readers.
Reviewed by Carissa Mason
