Published By: Quarto
Pages: 32
Released On: 04/10/2022
Starting with the partridge and its gift of dried fruit, this rhyming story includes all of the familiar characters from the song as they all contribute to the baking of the magnificent Twelfth Night cake.
- A trio of french hens bring baking powder
- Six geese bring eggs, and lots of feathers too
- Ten lords help carry the cake into the oven ready to bake
At the end of the story, there is a recipe included to bake your own cake at home, giving this book the potential to be a favourite Christmas story as well as a resource to be used every year in introducing a twelfth night cake tradition to a family.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Quarto for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
Okay, so this book is only about 30-odd pages long and it’s aimed at 4-6 year olds. But even as someone who is pushing 30 years old, I can really appreciate how beautiful this book is.
The illustrations really help make this book. The poetic prose itself is lovely in itself, but with the images, it just goes up another level. They’re not too simple but they’re not too complicated, as Goldilocks says, they’re just right. They really evoke that childhood magic we all get around Christmas time.
It’s not a surprise to most when I say I love Christmas and I love baking, so even if this is a children’s book, it was right up my street. It’s easy to read and it flows nicely and just gives you this festive warmth.
I have children in my family that range from 2-10 and I definitely think the younger ones would love to read come those dark wintery nights. I may even have to buy copies to leave in their bed once the nights start drawing in.
It’s really clever. I’ve tried writing children’s fiction before and it’s hard to get that balance right, but this has been thought through extremely well and had me smiling from start to finish.
Books By Your Bedside 