[This is a review I wrote in 2017]

A children’s picture book about a boy who can’t resist a sticky gooey chocolate cake! I thought I’d love this new Michael Rosen book. Usually a big fan of anything from this author, I confess I was a little disappointed.

The story is about a little boy (a little Michael Rosen really) sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night, when everyone else is fast asleep, to look at a big chocolate cake his mum has made… and then, of course, he’s unable to resist having a few crumbs… and then a bit more… until the whole cake is gone!!

It’s a picture book version of Rosen’s original poem, Chocolate Cake, from his collection ‘Poems and Stories About My Family’, but unfortunately it’s been re-written. The story itself is ok and I like the illustrations but the fill-in parts on the page, speech bubbles etc., just don’t seem to fit with the rest of the book. It comes across to me as disjointed and doesn’t really fit with the overall feel of the book. I might have preferred it better if it had been re-written with some partial rhyme to help it along, or if it had been reproduced in its original format but with the new illustrations for picture book format.

However, the idea of a boy sneaking downstairs in the night to look at this big chocolate cake (with a cute dog at his feet)… and then to be unable to resist eating it bit by bit… well, it’s fun and is bound to get kids giggling, even if it hasn’t completely hit the mark with me. I think it’ll be a ‘fun for 5 minutes’ sort of a picture book rather than a classic keeper. ( )