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Ruby is a chubby raccoon in a green dress with a very limited background in the kitchen in this appealing mid-level entry in the I Can Read series. In traditional cumulative story fashion, Ruby goes to all her animal friends asking for suggestions on ingredients for baking a cake. Each animal suggests a favorite food (nuts from the squirrel, snails from the duck, flies from the frog), leading to a green, gloppy mess when the cake is served at Ruby’s house. Her faithful friends offer compliments anyway, and Ruby concludes that she didn’t bake a good cake, but she does have good friends. Moore’s softly shaded watercolor-and-ink illustrations add personality to each animal character and charming details to Ruby’s cozy kitchen. This story would also work well as a read-aloud in primary-grade classrooms as a counterpoint to “The Little Red Hen” or in conjunction with other cumulative stories. (Easy reader. 5-7)
