The High Rise Glorious Skittle Skat Roarious Sky Pie Angel Food Cake

As she is preparing a special angelfood cake for her mother's birthday, a girl is surprised by three angels who have dropped in for a taste.

Grade 2-4-- A young girl, wishing to make her mother a birthday surprise, searches for her great-grandmother's secret recipe for the cake of the title. The recipe is found in an old diary, the secret ingredient turns up under the grand piano, and at midnight the cake is baked. Following directions, the girl spells LOVE backwards in the sugar, and three angels appear in the kitchen to add a spectacular icing and a golden thimble to the birthday morning surprise. Willard's considerable talents are confined here to what appears to be a marketable gift book, perfect for birthday parties. Watson decorates the story with full-color, realistically detailed pictures that rely heavily on stars, feathers, butterflies, and flowers to set the mood of magic and mirth. The mainstream American family of the story is balanced by three eccentrically ethnic angels: one a white-haired male in patchwork, one a Japanese beauty, and one a small black child with cornrows. Fine quality paper and gold-leaf endpapers provide the glossy packaging for this lighthearted, sugar-coated bit of whimsy. --Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

When a girl asks her mother what she'd like for her birthday, her mother replies that all she wants is a High Rise Glorious Skittle Skat Roarious Sky Pie Angel Food Cakestet caps , just like the one her grandmother once made for her. Determined to give her mother what she wants, the girl searches for the elusive recipe ("Is it in The Joy of Cooking ?") and, before she's finished baking, she has a culinary adventure that even Julia Child never dreamed of--and meets a band of unique angels in the process. Willard's prose is both lyrical and conversational, and the story is one of the most human and touching she has written. Watson's paintings put forth captivating images--particularly of the angels--only hinted at in the text, and add an extra touch of magic and mystery to this already magical, mysterious fairy tale. Ages 6-up.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.