SHIFTY MCGIFTY AND SLIPPERY SAM

Some rather slim fun about a couple of dogs making indecently sweet desserts.

Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam are two pooches in the robbery biz. But they are a luckless duo, their swag bag empty night after night. They hit on a plan—not a very community-minded one—to rob their neighbors. They’ll throw a party, and when everyone is making merry, Shifty and Sam will sneak out and ransack their homes. Bad dogs! Shifty and Sam also realize that they have to make fixings for the party and fall pretty hard for the art of baking: cupcakes, pies, cakes and doughnuts—“So creamy!” “So dreamy!” “The best buns in town!” gasp their neighbors. When the two dogs make their nefarious move, one of the partygoers overhears their plan and alerts the others, who follow at a distance. Shifty and Sam are thwarted. They are advised to go legit: Open a bakery. No clever turns here, no unexpected much of anything: The two dogs are on the path to rightness since their path to wrongness was a bust. The rhymed text is comfortable and has a certain melody; the artwork of pastel oil and chalk in party colors—pastry’s best friends on the page—is pure confection.

The illustrations are delicious, but the tale cuts little new ground.