Little Mouse and the Big Cupcake

When one small mouse finds one BIG cupcake (a chocolate chip, raspberry cream cupcake!), he wonders how he will get it home. It's much too heavy for him to carry. So, one by one, Little Mouse asks his animal friends to help. They all say, “yes”-but only after taking a nibble of the yummy treat. Will there be any cake left for the hungry Mouse?
Thomas Taylor and Jill Barton have whipped up a tasty story of friendship and sharing…with deliciously satisfying ending!
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School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 1—A picture book about the benefits of sharing an indulgence. Little Mouse finds a giant chocolate-chip, raspberry-cream cupcake, but it's too big for him to carry. He enlists the help of a few of his sweet-toothed friends, each of whom asks for a taste. Bird takes a nibble from the top, while Frog, Mole, Snail, Chipmunk, and Possum sink their paws into overflowing amounts of cake and icing. After slurping and chomping down their share, the friends gather around to peek inside at what appears to be an empty cupcake liner. Readers will be surprised to discover what is left and where it goes. Children will like the predictable rhythm, the rhyme on the last page, and the sound effects they are prompted to make throughout the book. Watercolor, pencil, and graphite ink illustrations and large brown text appear against a soft white background. The cheerfulness of this story extends to the jacket flap and endpapers. Sure to be a storytime favorite.—Tanya Boudreau, Cold Lake Public Library, AB, Canada

Thomas Taylor

The translator of this work, Thomas Taylor, is known for his authoritative translations of the Platonists; he was practically the sole source of Neo-Platonic thought in the transcendentalist movement of New England. Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras was a constant source of inspiration to the transcendentalists and a major influence on their writings throughout the Nineteenth Century. Taylor's work was enthusiastically acclaimed by Emerson, who referred to the translator as "a Greek born out of his time, and dropped on the ridicule of a blind and frivolous age."