Author: Sherry Gerstein

Publisher: Brighter Minds Children’s Publishing

ISBN: 157791260-8  

            One, two, a piece for you…

            Three four, would you like some more?

            Children love cake, birthday parties, and dogs. Mix them up with bright colors and fun dialogue and you get Sherry Gerstein’s The Great Cake.

            Yao and Rico—only two of a book full of adorable, doe-eyed animals—want to make the perfect birthday cake for their good friend Oppenheimer. They start the festivities with 1 cup of sugar. A new friend, who happens to have just the right number of items, adds each new ingredient.

            Children learn how to count to 10 almost as soon as they learn to talk. This book is about more than learning how to repeat the numbers in the correct order. Each page has a small cut out of the number, which the child can trace with their fingers. That will help them associate the appropriate number symbol with the number. In addition, cut out dots accompany each cut out number—the appropriate number of cut outs for that number. That will help your child grasp several concepts: that symbols represent numbers and that numbers represent quantity. This book is clever and rather unique in that respect. Not only can children count the items as Oppenheimer’s friends pour them into the batter, they can trace the dots, which reinforces the whole point of the lesson.

            Oppenheimer and his friends are adorable in their simplicity. You can see the anticipation in their huge eyes—seems to be a Bennett trademark.

            The last two pages repeat the numbers and dots in order and offer a number of helpful learning hints and activities that parents can enjoy with their preschooler.

  The above review was contributed by:  Susan Sales Harkins:  Software consultant and the author of several articles and books on database technologies. She and her husband, William, collaborate on children's non-fiction. Click Here to read more of Susan’s Reviews