This was adorable. It’s a bit of a higher level easy reader. Monkey and cake are arguing what is inside a closed box. It could be anything. It could be a cat, it could be a dinosaur. But they are only in the box when the box is closed. This was a neat philosophical argument put at a kindergarteners comprehension and imagination and I loved it. ( )

Cake is excited about Monkey's box, but is perplexed to learn that inside is a magical cat that cannot be seen if the box is opened.

This book was a clever, fun twist on Schrodinger's cat. Monkey insists that there IS a cat in the box but it cannot be seen once the box is open, whereas Cake is skeptical that the cat even exists. Who is right?

The illustrations are pretty basic in terms of background details, but they work with the fairly bare bones story/text. This is a good book for beginning readers as there's only a few words per page and the vocabulary is not overly complicated. However, the story is still quite humorous with its sparing words.

Why on earth there is an anthropomorphic piece of cake who is friends with a monkey is a mystery to me. (Stranger still to learn that the cake loves eating pie.) Neither character is explicitly gendered, but that tends to end up meaning male as default.

My only real hesitation with recommending this book is due to anonymous allegations against the author that arose during a #metoo reckoning in children's literature. ( )