Who Made This Cake?

おたすけこびと [Otasuke kobito]

by Chihiro Nakagawa, Junji Koyose (illustrator)

While a boy and his parents go for an outing, little people invade the house and use their big construction equipment to bake a cake.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Construction, Food, Storytime, Cooking, Fiction

32 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2007

Reviews

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun story with a reality-meets-fantasy twist as all sort of miniature construction vehicles and workers bake and decorate a birthday cake for the child. A great story for kids who dig backhoes and concrete trucks! This is a translation of a Japanese picture book and the pictures retain that Japanese flare that is a rare treat for us in the states.

[Tasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Take the sweetness of baking a cake, mix it with construction vehicles, and populate it with charming tiny beings, and you have this book. A family calls to order a birthday cake, and they spring into action. The little people are about a quarter-inch tall as seen in scale with a stick of butter, so they need construction vehicles to make the cake. Along the way, children will see the stages of baking a cake and will enjoy the fun and color of the tiny people using large machinery to do such easy work.

The illustrations are large and vibrant, but because of the small figures it is best to read this to one or two children at a time. A large part of the fun is poring over the actions of the tiny people as they work hard to make this cake. The illustrations make great use of white space and pops of color. The story is secondary to the illustrations, and with few select words talks of the steps of baking.

Charming, delicious and clever, this book will appeal to all sorts of children. From those who only want books with diggers to those who love to cook to the broad number of children who enjoy the tiny and interesting. This book will zoom off of shelves all on its own. Appropriate for ages 3-5.

[Tracy Schillemore · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am doing a cake storytime and the nice thing about this book is that it adds construction vehicles to cake making. Cakes can sometimes come off as girly so this is a nice throw in for the less girly patrons.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utter perfection. Construction vehicles, cake baking, imagination galore and a delightfully topsy-turvy sense of scale (are the cake bakers tiny people? or are the birthday family giants?). I love it.

[Emilia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy crap this book is cute! This mom orders a cake and this team of itty bitty miniature CHILDREN rush in with heavy machinery to make it. They decorate it and everything. They use the machinery to crack eggs and mix in flour, sugar, etc. After they get the thing in the oven they take a break which means beverages and ice cream from food trucks! One of them even busts out a guitar!! This book is adorable in a way that transcends the overused "it has trucks in it so it's a good book for boys" cliche. The details in the pictures make it work on a deeper level than the text conveys. Obviously I love this book, but it also makes a certain 18 month old very happy which I think is really all the praise it needs.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have a construction-obsessed toddler, you have to get your hands on this book. It is a whimsical twist on the standard "look what this big equipment can do" book. In this book, tiny people rush onto the page with their tiny construction equipment to build a human-sized birthday cake. They use cranes to lift eggs and front loaders to fill dump trucks with flour. The batter is pumped into the pan by something that I think is a concrete pump truck. The little people leap to the task of baking with child-like enthusiasm. At the end of the book, they line up in the window to watch the birthday boy enjoy the product of their labor.

[Goodworth1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

My 2.5 year old truck lover was absolutely enchanted by this book. He wanted me to read it over and over again and was genuinely thrilled with every reading. The illustrations were intriguing and interesting and the whole idea of a cake being made by a teeny construction crew and their heavy equipment seemed especially compelling to him. I like that it was a quick picture book that held his interest.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A massive team of tiny construction workers assemble a cake using bridges, cranes and trucks. Really fun & unique. Brightly colored illustrations of miniature construction workers show them running, working cranes, arguing over plans, falling down, sweeping up, driving, etc. There's a lot of work that goes into baking!

[Green Bean · Rating 5 out of 5]

When a mom orders a cake for her son’s birthday, a barrage of miniature construction workers zoom into action to create a human-sized cake. Tiny workers use toy cranes, bulldozers and cement trucks to methodically take us through the steps of making the perfect birthday cake for a little boy! This book is an ideal birthday gift for a construction-obsessed younger child.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if a crowd of little tiny people used construction machines to make your birthday cake? Delightful pictures accompany a short text that gives simple instructions for baking a cake. So much fun!

[Miss Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A simple any age group book about construction vehicles carrying ingredients, mixing them, helping to bake them and the frosting the resulting cake. Cleaver.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

love this

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun concept.

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mentions birthdays, otherwise would probably use it for storytime.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cuteness and construction! This book has so much to look at for those machine loving kids. I love that it combines the work of construction with something much softer and sweeter that creating a building or road.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The construction vehicles come in to make the giant cake. Huge eggs, giant pan. This book is a ton of fun and shows the imagination of a little child just perfectly.

[Jessica Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun illustrations, fun story. My two year old loves this book.

[Kim Redington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little people use construction vehicles to make a HUGE birthday cake! So many workers and machines work together to make one big birthday cake! Fun to read to preschoolers!

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

A host of small people with construction equipment make a cake, which is served to a boy for his birthday. Whimsical and simple.

[Gia Bittner · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was cute, but it was just okay. And I’m still confused about who actually made the cake. Were all of the little people toys? I have unanswered questions lol.
-Mama

[Jackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

日本語で読んだ。一番好きな絵本かもしれない。イラストはめちゃくちゃかわくて面白い。たくさん小さい ディテールがある。

[Wendy Lu]

Have been reading this with my friend's kids! The littler one has a set of three books (including this one) that we have been going through for every book-time :)

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, I don't understand why my 3-year-old loves this book so much, but he wanted to read it several times a day for 3 weeks straight while we borrowed it from the library. I believe it's been translated into English bc, to be perfectly honest, some of the wording doesn't make sense to me, but oh well! Our little guy loves diggers and construction equipment and this book features that and then adds to it the fact that there's little people using this equipment to make a giant cake. He loves it. LOVES IT. We had a meltdown at the library when we needed to return it and although I could have renewed it for another 3 weeks, I insisted that another friend would really like to read this book, so it needed to go back, but really, I just needed a break. HA!

[Lady Lioness · Rating 3 out of 5]

This struck me as primarily a 'boy' book as it is very short on plot, but has a preponderance of construction vehicles. In addition, I think there was a bit of a translation error as you can't just spread whipped cream on a cake. You can certainly use whipped cream to make a frosting, but left on its own, it will easily melt off the cake. There was also some redundancy among the illustrations of the little people. It looked like, to me, that some of the people had been merely photoshopped from one page to the next. The front and back endpapers are very cute, though. This is basically a picture book I would give to a four year old boy to distract him while I baked a cake myself.

[carrietracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

My kid loves baking. He also loves construction. Therefore, this book is a huge hit. The text is sparse at best. While I adore the construction vehicles assisting with the baking, I honestly wish they'd hired a cooking consultant, because I feel like with such an excellent premise, they could have done more! Some baking steps seem to be skipped and although I can't say for sure, it looked an awful lot like they put a metal pan into a microwave to bake the cake. All my nitpicking aside, my kid loves it, I love that it's short to read aloud and yet can take a long time if you really want to talk about the pictures.

[Skye Kilaen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the first children's books we fell in love with! When a young boy needs a birthday cake, all his mom has to do is make a call. To a crew of hundreds of tiny people who use construction equipment to mix, bake, and decorate the perfect cake. Any kid who likes little cute things and/or big trucks should get a kick out of this. Seeing the giant-scale eggs strapped to flatbed trucks may be my favorite part. Lots of small details in this one. I asked my son what he liked about this book and he said "Everything!"

[Janessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun, fresh new take on construction vehicles! Little tykes who love their trucks will enjoy following these yellow excavators, cranes, cement mixers, flatbed trucks and more into the kitchen, where tiny crews and truck operators use their equipment to crack eggs, mix batter, and ultimately bake the perfect birthday cake.

[Modboy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book doesn't get read much in my house. It's not requested because it really doesn't have a plot. However, the pictures are very fun to look at. Every two-page spread depicts a scene showing tons of little people with various construction vehicles making a cake. A good book that could have been great if it had a bit of drama mixed in.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who Made This Cake? by Chihiro Nakagawa provides an excellent book for teaching children the steps that go into making a cake in a creative format. This book would be great for teaching students about projects that have multiple steps. The detailed, creative illustrations would be enjoyable for students!

[Cecily Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is our new favorite and such a refreshing and imaginative change from traditional books about construction equipment. My three-year-old, who has been obsessed with diggers since day one, wants to read it every night! I love the illustrations. This was named a USBBY Outstanding International Book, which makes me want to find out what other books have earned that award.