Pancakes for Supper!
Written by Anne Isaacs, Illustrated by Mark Teague
Children's Picture Book Ages 4-8
Rating: 4/5

Toby and her parents set out on a wagon ride, but the wagon hits a bump and Toby flies off! She encounters many egotistical forest animals who take her clothing to be "the grandest animal in the forest." When they all start fighting over who is the grandest, Toby notices maple syrup coming out of a nearby tree and they collect it in time for dinner!

Opinion: This book has amazing illustrations. The expressions on Toby's face as well as on the animal's faces really paint a vivid picture of what is happening in the story. The animals taking Toby's clothes and sauntering away is very humorous, mainly because of the pictures. The story has a nice rhythm to it with repetition in just the right places, although the ending is a bit random, as a search for maple syrup was never really in the plot to begin with.

Curriculum Connection: This would fit well into a lesson on vanity, and how all the animals are so obsessed with how they look that they eventually fight each other and forget what they were really aiming for! This would also be good to do as a class play, where the kids can act out the different animals while Toby hands over her articles of clothing. It could be incorporated into a listening activity where kids have to name all of the animals that were mentioned in the book.