The Donut Chef
Written and illustrated by Bob Staake
Golden Books; $14.99
40 pp.; ISBN-13: 978-0375844034

Review by Amy Brozio-Andrews

It's an important lesson in getting back to basics that fuels The Donut Chef, colorful, rhyming picture book about a donut chef who lets a little competition get way out of hand, only to be brought back to reality by a cute little girl.

At first, the humble donut chef is simply happy to open his store, Donut Land on a busy street. He makes and sells his donuts and becomes very popular in the neighborhood. When a fellow donut chef gets wind of Donut Land's success, this other fellow decides to open up his own donut shop, Donut World, around the corner. With people wondering which donut shop was really better, the dueling donut chefs ratchet up the rhetoric and pull out all the stops, topping each other's offers (on sale! more frosting!) and finally creating ever-more bizarre baked goods that no longer even resembled donuts, all in the quest to bring customers into the store.

It's not until a visit from little Debbie Sue that the donut chef is brought up short. She can't find her favorite kind of donut and he regales her with all his offerings, confidently telling her that if he doesn't have it, it's not available. "But I want.... glazed!" she says. He is stunned. Glazed are so plain. Old fashioned. No one has glazed donuts anymore. No one has glazed donuts anymore! The donut chef whips up a batch of glazed donuts and now that the old fashioned favorite has returned to the donut shop case, the competition between the rival donut chefs gets settled, once and for all.

Bob Staake's The Donut Chef is well-rhymed and well-told. It's a fast moving story where the verse is never awkward or forced, and the overalll narrative is satisfyingly told. Sometimes simpler really is better and it's nice that it's the child in the story who gets to point that out. If his colorful and stylized illustrations look familiar, it is because Staake's work has graced the cover of The New Yorker magazine. The pages are bright with color and Staake provides a dizzying array of candy-colored donuts, complete with sprinkles, frostings, unusual shapes, and unconventional toppings. This is a nice read-aloud book with enough story and engaging artwork to keep kids interested from beginning to end.