Isaacs,
A., Teague, M., & Bannerman, H. (2006). Pancakes for supper!. New York:
Scholastic Press.
Toby
bounces right out of the back of a covered wagon on the way to Whisker Creek
and she lands in a soft pile of snow. Luckily, she’s wearing a new set of
pretty warm clothes, but her parents are long-gone and a hungry wolf with terrible
green eyes paces around her. She fends off the wolf and five more hungry forest
dwellers by trading her beautiful new wardrobe for her life. Each animal claims
to be the grandest beast in the forest, until they all meet. The fighting of
the angry animals creates a delicious opportunity, and when Toby is reunited with
her parents, they make campfire pancakes for supper.
This is
definitely a beast tale, told in cumulative fashion. Six different
animals confront Toby, all wanting to eat her for supper, and she outwits them
in the same way. The animals are clearly on the bad side of being two-dimensional characters, where Toby
and her parents are the good guys. This story begs being told aloud. The drama
of the scary animals and the number of pancakes Toby eats could be exaggerated with
voices and actions. Some of the dialogue is repetitive. Toby always says, “…and
I will make you the grandest animal in the forest.” The animal always claims, “Now
I’m the grandest beast, West or
East!”
Similar traditional tales are told in many cultures.
An outdated and politically incorrect version is Little Black Sambo. Another tale is Trouble with Trolls, where the author Jan Brett uses the idea of
giving away clothes to animals.
Preschool
and early elementary children will enjoy the plot and the boldly-colored paint
style of the illustrations. The line
of each drawing is distinct and the large shape
of the characters balances well with the forest background. The animals really
stand out in Toby’s bright clothing.
Curriculum
connection: Cooking is a great intersection between practical living and math. A
class could scale up a pancake recipe for the class, and practice applying
fractions. In fact, there is a recipe for Toby’s
Animal Pancakes on the back of the dust jacket.
Math Standard: 6.NS.1 Interpret and compute
quotients of fractions, and solve word problems involving division of fractions
by fractions, e.g., by using visual fraction models and equations to represent
the problem.
Questions
to discuss with students: What would you do if you came across a wild animal in
the woods? Or became lost in the woods?
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