Hugless Douglas & The Great Cake Bake product reviews

Hugless Douglas is a much loved bear in my household with Miss 3 and myself, and also amongst the children who I teach at a daycare since they first met him through several Hugless Douglas books that my daughter owns which we have taken in to share. When we saw that there was a new book in the Hugless Douglas collection we were pretty excited, even more so due to the fact that he was baking a cake, Miss 3 and my daycare children LOVE baking and so I knew this was bound to be a hit.

Like in all the other Hugless Douglas books we own the main characters are Hugless Douglas the cute and loveable bear and a group of sheep. The pictures are just gorgeous, bright and colourful and the expressions on each of the characters faces really do speak a hundred words! On each of the pages the sheep are featured though on some pages they appear to be purposely hidden, my daughter made it her challenge on each of the pages to find each and every one of them! I really like the font used in the book, it is of a larger font than most children's books so allows children to in a way become familiar with the lettering, there are also some words written in an even larger text which really adds a whole new level of dimension to the pages!

This particular book is about Hugless Douglas who can't live without honey (what bear can?!). So one day when he wakes to find his honey missing he goes off on a hunt for it as he can not eat anything unless it's honey coated! He finds the sheep have taken it and are using it to make honey cakes with a variety of other healthy ingredients which they have collected berries, nuts and carrots to name a few. Throughout the book poor Hugless DOuglas is starving and so begins to get desperate for something to eat and tries a plain carrot he soon learns that food isn't so bad without honey after all!

In the back of the book it includes a recipe to make honey cakes. SO after reading the book to my daycare children one morning at 4 year old group time we decided to bake the honey cakes ourselves. We talked about what we perhaps thought we needed to gather for the ingredients and of course due to the honey cakes in the book having nuts, vegetables and berries in them the children expected these would be needed, the children were a bit miffed as these were not in the ingredient list, and to be honest I did find it a bit weird myself. None the less we baked the cakes, and the recipe was super quick and easy to follow and the end results pretty tasty, the children and teachers loved them, and we have saved the recipe for future reference.

Both myself and the other staff thought this was a great story and we loved the fact it encourages sharing and healthy eating as well as the fact it puts an emphasis on trying new foods out! It was great having the recipe in the back of the book as this provides an extension to a much loved book and baking is always such a great way of learning as it encompases many life skills such as measuring, science and turn-taking.

A great book which Miss 3 loves to pieces and will continue to enjoy for some time, best of all it is a great price and so easy to read with many laughs along the way!