Random Acts of Cakeness

Baking serves as social communication in this emotionally aware picture book. When Arun doesn’t know how to help a friend, he expresses empathy through culinary creations. After pal Lilya loses a coat button, Arun gifts “gingerbread men with shiny buttons down their fronts.” For George, whose wheelchair gets a flat before a basketball game, the young baker whips up pinwheel cookies. When another friend’s dog gets sick, the protagonist attempts “his biggest bake yet—a bake sale to raise money for the animal hospital.” But things don’t go as planned, leaving him despondent until the community offers support using Arun’s language of sweet treats. Echoing Marmaras’s straightforward text, which describes cakes as having “fallen from the sky,” desserts galore tumble across pages in Duffy’s airbrush-textured visuals, while scenes emphasize the emotional via expressive depictions of children of varied abilities and skin tones. The overall effect is a “sweet” ode to the way kindness inspires kindness. Ages 4–8. (July)