The Perfect Birthday Recipe is a story of creativity, perfectionism and friendship. Beaver has very particular ideas about how he wants his birthday cake to look but his kind and generous friends want to help him make it. Will it be a recipe for disaster or can Beaver, Squirrel, Tortoise, Rabbit and Bird find a way to make the perfect cake?
The Story: Beaver is a perfectionist and has the perfect plan for his birthday cake. It’s a rather large cake so his friends offer to help him make it. Baking doesn’t go well as Beaver’s friends don’t share his ideas and definitely don’t work in the same way that he does. Finally the cake is finished but Beaver isn’t happy. While his friends sleep he makes another cake before realising that he has nobody with him to share it…
We love this group of friends whose distinct personalities and animal characteristics give them different approaches to life. Beaver’s friends’ enthusiasm for helping magnifies his stress but he himself needs to make the perfect cake before realising that being a perfectionist can also have its disadvantages!
Despite Beaver’s frustration, which gets worse as each of his friends gets involved, The Perfect Birthday Recipe is full of humour. Rabbit doesn’t read the recipe properly, Tortoise works too slowly and we laughed at loud when Bird added her family’s ‘secret ingredient’. The finished cake is magnificent but it doesn’t look ‘quite’ like the perfect cake in Beaver’s picture!
But Beaver does end up having the best birthday he’s ever had although it’s not quite what he had envisioned…
The Perfect Birthday Recipe is a fabulous book to read in the classroom to stimulate discussions about friendship, helping our friends and accepting that we all do things in different ways. It can also inspire some amazing birthday cake artwork. What would your perfect birthday cake look like…?
Age Range: 3 +
Author / Illustrator: Katy Hudson
Thank you to Raintree for sending us a review copy of this fabulous book which is the final story in Katy Hudson’s set of seasonal picture books which can all be read and enjoyed as standalone picture books.
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