Picture Book Spotlight: Clever Jack Takes The Cake & The Duchess of Whimsy

Picture Book Spotlight is an original weekly post that will highlight relevant and/or popular picture books and suggest age groups and storytime themes for them. It will also include a mini-review. 
Today I have a double whammy because these two books share so many themes.  Another great pairing would be Apple Cakes.

Title: Clever Jack Takes The Cake
Author: Candace Fleming Pages:40 Audience: K-2 Themes: fantasy, fairytales, food, love, humor 

Summary: 
What would you do if you were invited to the princess’s tenth birthday party but didn’t have money for a gift? Well, clever Jack decides to bake the princess a cake.

Now he just has to get it to the castle in one piece. What could possibly go wrong?                                      

My Thoughts:  I LOVED this picture book. It has really charming illustrations and a storyline that will make you slap your head and laugh at the same time. Jack tries to take a cake to the princess but little by little it gets eaten away by other creatures on his journey.

Title: The Duchess of Whimsy
Authors: Peter de Seve Pages: 32 Audience: K-2 Themes: fantasy, fairytales, stories, food, love, humor

Summary:  
The great New Yorker artist Peter de Seve teams up with the author of bestselling Toy Boat in a slightly outrageous fairy tale. The Duchess of Whimsy is fancy and fussy—and definitely not ordinary—surrounding herself with wild friends, fabulous foods, and fancy dress. The Earl of Norm (ho hum) is completely ordinary, but he adores the Duchess. She ignores him, until the chef gets sick, and her friends have to make a super supper—which includes tracking down truffles, spinning sugar stars, and looking for quail eggs.

But the Earl is hungry! He sneaks off to an ordinary grilled cheese sandwich—and suddenly takes the Duchess’s eye. Maybe there’s something to simplicity after all. Maybe there’s something to the Earl after all . . .

This deliciously told and illustrated love story by the remarkable de Sèves shows how utterly charming and extraordinary a picture book can be                                           

My Thoughts:  Cute! I loved these whimsical ;P illustrations full of color and fun and crazy things. The story is about a normal Duke who falls in love with the Duchess of whimsy. The moral is you should get to know people before judging them. Because this is really focused on romance, I probably wouldn't read it for a storytime. It has a very princess-story feeling with your typical themes. The language was fun and had some rhymes.