Eric Carle

The barnyard rooster crows and Jack wakes up -- hungry, of course! What does he want for breakfast? A big pancake! But first, Jack's mother needs flour from the mill, an egg from the black hen, milk from the spotted cow, butter churned from fresh cream, and firewood for the stove. Will Jack ever get his pancake? With his trademark vibrant collage illustrations and a lively text, Eric Carle has created a mouthwatering tale for young readers.

Pancakes, Pancakes!

Sarah Sammis

Pancakes, Pancakes by Eric Carle uses the act of making pancakes to teach about farming and cooking. A hungry boy wants pancakes for breakfast and his mother asks him to gather all the ingredients before she can make them.

The problem with this approach to story telling is that realistically the son will have starved to death before he gets everything collected. Farming is something done over weeks and the food must be preserved for use later. It's not something done in one day. I'm pointing this out because my children complain about the set up of the story whenever we read this book. It would have made more sense to send the boy out to work the farm after breakfast to show how and where all the ingredients came from.

So while the book has the usual Eric Carle illustrations which by themselves are nice to look at, Pancakes Pancakes is our least favorite of his books.

Pancakes, Pancakes!

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