Originally published in 1977 by Methuen & Co. This edition published by Egmont, 2016.

I loved Bod when I was growing up in the late 70s/early 80s and when I saw him again, in this lovely new edition, so many happy childhood memories came flooding back. Bod is a strange looking fellow by today’s picture book standards. With his bald head he’s more old man than child and his A-frame smock is rather an unusual get-up. All of this just serves to make him particularly endearing.

The Bod books all feature the same small cast of characters: Bod, Aunt Flo, Farmer Barleymow, Frank the postman and PC Copper. In Bod and the Cake Aunt Flo is baking a cake and decides to invite the others round to help her eat it. She has become rather forgetful of late and so she asks Bod to telephone her before he arrives to remind her to take the cake out of the oven. Everybody is excited to have been invited to Aunt Flo’s for tea and cake but they each have a job to finish first. Unfortunately, Bod forgets to remind Aunt Flo about the cake but in the end it doesn’t matter because Aunt Flo has forgotten to put it in the oven!

The joy of this book is its simplicity. The plot and characters are uncomplicated. The illustrations are simple line drawings filled in with block colour with very little in the way of backgrounds. It’s a gentle, engaging tale that has stood the test of time.

Rating: 💙💙💙💙

Suitable for children aged 2+

We originally reviewed Bod and the Cake as Guardian family reviewers and we would like to thank Guardian Children’s Books for sending us a copy of the book.