[BOOK REVIEW] Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie dePaola

Title:  Pancakes for Breakfast

Author:  Tomie dePaola

Genre:  Food / Comedy / Wordless / Winter / Pets

Year Published: 1978

Year Read:  2016

Publisher: Harcourt, Inc.

Source:  Library

Content Rating:  Ages 4+ (Nothing Objectionable)

Buy on:  Amazon  //  Book Depository 

You know, I have been reading Tomie dePaola’s works ever since I was a child and out of all of those works, I had never once read a book of Tomie dePaola’s that was…WORDLESS!  Now, I have been reading many wordless picture books for ages, but I never knew that Tomie dePaola wrote a wordless picture book called “Pancakes for Breakfast” which was indeed his first wordless picture book!

The story starts off with an old woman waking up from bed, along with her dog and cat and she wanted to make a nice batch of pancakes for breakfast.  So, the old woman went to her kitchen to get the ingredients she needed for the pancakes, but she realized that she did not have any eggs for the batter.  So, she goes out to the barn to get some eggs from the chickens and after she got the eggs, she realizes that she does not have any butter for the batter.  So, she goes outside to milk her cow and create the butter with the milk she churned from the cow and after she made the butter, she realizes that she does not have any maple syrup!  So, she goes to her neighbor’s house to get some syrup and just as the old woman got all the ingredients to make her pancakes…

Does the old woman finally get the chance to eat her pancakes?

Read this book to find out!

Wow!  For a wordless picture book, this was some pretty impressive work from Tomie dePaola, especially when you are so used to Tomie dePaola’s works having text to narrate the stories!  Tomie dePaola’s artwork really sold this story as it shows how an old woman wanted to make pancakes for breakfast, but keeps on forgetting the essential ingredients to make her pancakes such as milk, eggs, butter and syrup.  It was cute seeing the old woman try to obtain the ingredients for the pancakes in many different ways such as milking her cow to get the butter and milk, getting eggs from her hens and getting syrup from her next door neighbor as it gives the story an old fashioned and traditional vibe that really made this story stand out from the other modern day stories about obtaining ingredients for a recipe.  I also loved the images of both the dog and the cat as it was adorable seeing them accompany the old woman in her need to obtain the ingredients for her pancakes.

Overall, “Pancakes for Breakfast” is a truly cute story about an old woman trying to find the right ingredients for her pancakes that many readers, who had to go through the same experience, no matter how differently they went about it, would definitely relate to! I would recommend this book to children ages four and up since there is nothing inappropriate in this book.