BAKING WITH DAD

A little girl spends time making a mess—er, baking, with her dad.

Regardless of the mess the two make in the kitchen, this little girl certainly has the steps down for baking a cake: choose the ingredients, add them one by one, mix, add fruit, then: “Be patient. Let the magic begin!” It’s not clear from the illustrations whether the decorating step is for the house or for the cake, but both look festive by the time the doorbell rings: Happy Birthday! “Wow! What a cake!” Some tunes, some hats, and some additional, racially diverse guests make it a party. Orange, yellow, and blue dominate the palette in the illustrations, which feature simple backgrounds and a scribbly style. Father and daughter are both white; he is bald with a brown beard, and she has bushy red hair in two straight-up pigtails that resemble horns. The characters’ big white eyes give them a manic look; though the two ape each other’s actions and are obviously having fun together, love is not an overt ingredient in this recipe. While baking, the two sport chef’s hats, though their diminutive size makes them look rather like bones, and the noses often look as though they have toes. The ending, with its white male guest of honor, might suggest a same-sex couple.

Bake next week? Maybe next week’s lesson should include cleaning up.