A Cake for Herbie [Hardcover]

Petra Mathers (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

Lottie's friend Herbie has a special way with words...and it takes someone just as special to appreciate him. Will his originality shine through at the big poetry contest, where the winner brings home a prize cake? Find out as Herbie takes center stage in Petra Mathers' funny, touching new picture book.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In Lottie's New Beach Towel and Lottie's New Friend, Petra Mathers evokes the spirit of James Marshall's hippos George and Martha, celebrating the quiet joys of the friendship between Lottie the chicken and Herbie the duck with a feather-light touch.

In A Cake for Herbie, Herbie (the star of the third Herbie and Lottie book) decides to enter a poetry contest in which the winner literally takes the cake. Despite the fact that he stays up all night concocting poems about food from A to Z ("Artie chews, / Artie swallows, / Artichokes"), he is booed off the stage on the big night. This is especially "K ... for kruel" because Lottie is quite greenly sick and not there to comfort him. But all is not lost. Herbie, forlorn in the back alley, is soon ushered into a bustling restaurant kitchen where he and his delicious doggerel are welcomed by sweaty Betty (offering spaghetti) and a host of other shamelessly rhyming birds of a feather.

Herbie's new friends bake him a cake after all, and he can't wait to tell... Lottie! He zooms home along the now seemingly endless road, arriving with a mostly eaten cake and a story to share while she knits on the couch. Mathers's neatly boxed, crisply composed, colorful paintings each communicate a small story-within-a-story, richly deserving the close study of voracious young bookworms. If you haven't yet discovered this artist's sweet, funny world, now's the time to be introduced. (Ages 4 to 8) --Karin Snelson

From Publishers Weekly

Herbie and Lottie, Mathers's winsome duck-and-chicken duo (Lottie's New Beach Towel; Lottie's New Friend), are in town for groceries when they spy an announcement for a poetry contest. "A Cake for a Poem," the poster reads. Being inordinately fond of both, Herbie sets to work, and with a bowl of chocolate pudding as his muse, he composes an alphabetically organized poem entirely about food ("A: Artie chews,/ Artie swallows,/ Artichokes"). The audience boos his masterpiece, though, and with Lottie sick in bed, he has nowhere to turn for consolationDuntil he meets up with the versifying cooks and waiters at the Ship's Inn restaurant. After an evening of conversing in rhymed couplets, they send him home with his self-esteem restored and a magnificent cake to boot. Mathers's droll, economical text and vibrant, equally economical visuals in tidy panels combine seamlessly to portray Herbie's anticipation, anxiety, humiliation and grateful sense of belonging. She captures the humor and sweetness of his efforts in idiosyncratic, perfectly childlike detail: thinking "makes his head hot"; he blushes when Lottie gently corrects his spelling ("I like it, but caramel custard starts with C"). A funny, reassuring addition to a highly appealing series, this makes a delectable dessert indeed. Ages 4-8. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Atheneum/Anne Schwartz Books; 1st edition (May 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689830173
• ISBN-13: 978-0689830174
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #656,067 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lottie and Herbie Never Disappoint, June 20, 2000

By 

Roz Levine - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Cake for Herbie (Hardcover)

A Cake for Herbie is a sensitive, charming story your pre-schoolers will adore. Herbie the duck reads about a poetry contest and with the encouragement of his best friend Lottie the chicken, he enters. He stays up all night working hard on his poetry, only to be laughed off the stage. Sad and disappointed, he walks into a restaurant where his poetry is appreciated and he wins his own special prize. Petra Mathers charming and amusing text is only outdone by her wonderful, expressive illustrations. This is a touching story your children will want you to read over and over again. You don't want to miss this very special book.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars K is for "Krazy", July 15, 2006

By 

My Uncle Stu (Atlanta) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: A Cake for Herbie (Paperback)

As I wrote in my review of Lottie's Beach Towel, there is something I find unsettling about Petra Mather's books. A befuddling, surreal quality. But they are hit with my kids. And this book is my personal favorite of the bunch. It has just enough funny, weird moments to make me look forward to reading it.

The basic story finds Herbie, a duck, entering a poetry contest to try and win a cake. He is encouraged on by Lottie, a hen I believe. Herbie decides to write a poem going through the alphabet, with a little rhyming food-related couplet for each letter. He pulls an all-nighter three days before the contest. The thinking makes his hed hot, so he puts a bag of ice on his head, but then the cold makes him hungry so he has to make pudding. But he is able to write all the way to `K' for which he writes "You don't need mustard/ for karamel kustard." Lottie informs him of his error, he accepts her critique with grace, and continues writing. The night before, he has nightmares, we see him bound and gagged on stage, with his notepad strapped to his torso, as the cake floats away on angel's wings. That picture was redeeming moment number one. Despite the nightmares, he is encouraged because his friend Lottie will be there with him at the poetry contest. But the next morning Lottie is physically ill. Redeeming moment number two is a picture of Lottie- again a hen or possibly a chicken- kneeling over a toilet about to heave. Herbie must persevere without his only fan. When he enters the contest, we see redeeming moment number three and my single favorite Petra Mathers moment: A blue bird, dressed as a beatnik complete with beret, is on stage at the poetry contest, reciting: "...now I know no one but one gnome,/ no one knows I know this gnome,/ only the gnome knows that I know him." Herbie is appropriately intimidated by the competition. He bombs on stage and leaves, dejected, at K, "K is for kruel." He hides out in an alley, alone with his sorrow, but is discovered by a chef, a chef at a restaurant where everyone rhymes. What a fabulous break. He is embraced by his new friends, momentarily forgets about his friend Lottie, still convalescing at home, until he is rewarded by a cake. He drives back home, Checks in on Lottie, along with what's left of the cake, and tells her all about his adventures. That's the story. Good enough to win me over for a positive review. Quite peculiar but worth the read.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We Love Lottie!, August 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Cake for Herbie (Hardcover)

My two-year old is fascinated by Lottie and Herbie and I get a kick out of reading the Lottie series everytime. This one just might be our favorite though, because it's about food and poetry! Quirky and something different from so many other cutesy books, this one has humor, substance, and delightful illustrations.