SNICKERDOODLE TAKES THE CAKE

A young chinchilla who just can’t resist temptation comes up with a way to make amends.

Children (and adults!) will totally understand how Snickerdoodle feels when faced with the irresistible lure of his mother’s “Famous Lemon Poppy Seed Cake with Buttercream Icing.” And if they don’t have personal experience, Long’s digital illustrations make the small creature’s feelings perfectly clear. Yes, the cake is marked with a “Do Not Touch” note. But even Snickerdoodle’s imagined picture of his mother as a forked-tongue, horned monster surrounded by fire and screaming “STAY AWAY FROM the CAKE” can’t stop him from rationalizing that the note didn’t say not to “try one tiny crumb.” Resistance is utterly futile after that, and though Snickerdoodle tries (hysterically) to control his wayward hand, he can’t control the tripping hazard that is his cat. Cliffhangers on many of the spreads lead readers to frantically turn the pages as each “But…” leads to yet more disaster for Snickerdoodle. The three siblings’ solution is perfectly in tune with what readers might do, and their results are believably childlike and completely satisfactory to their Na Na, whose birthday they are celebrating. While the male chinchillas in the anthropomorphic family are grayish, all the females have eyelashes and a slightly pink cast to their fur.

Though Snickerdoodle fails to resist gluttony with either cake, this remains a realistic look at problem-solving and making things right.