Helen Ketteman * Armadilly Chili

Description
When Mayor Fargenberg announced a cake-baking competition for the town’s big Fourth of July celebration, Donna Rae Hadley started thinking. And as all of Danville knew, once Donna Rae got one of her big ideas, anything could happen.

Not just any cake would do for Donna Rae’s entry. Of course it needed to taste wonderful. But her cake also needed all the drama of the Boston Tea Party. It needed to showcase patriotism, like the Statue of Liberty. It needed the pizzazz and excitement of Paul Revere’s ride.

Even Mayor Fargenberg, who was secretly sweet on Donna Rae, could see a disaster in the making. Bring your fork and your appetite to the spirited holiday bake-off, but don’t forget your napkin. The cake will be flying.

When the judges approached Donna Rae’s cake, she held up her hand. “There’s a surprise with my cake.” Mayor Fargenberg turned white. “Don’t worry,” Donna Rae whispered. Donna Rae grabbed Chester’s reins. The crowd gasped. Donna Rae mounted the horse. The crowd held its breath as Chester stepped onto the cobblestone street that led up to Donna Rae’s cake.

“The British are coming!” Donna Rae shouted. In her excitement, she pulled the reins a little too tight. Chester’s head jerked back. He stumbled off the road and crushed the Old North Church. He skidded off the Cake, knocking over one of the tables. Donna Rae hit the other table. Cakes flew faster than double-struck lightning.

Reviews
Donna Rae makes an entire riverfront out of cake, with a harbor of tea, for the Fourth of July cake bake, but when she invites the mayor over for a preview, tea splashes everywhere. Undaunted, she constructs a Statue of Liberty cake, but when the mayor lights the torch, it explodes (and singes off his mustache). Her final cake construction is of the entire town of Boston, with Donna Rae herself as Paul Revere. It comes to an even more spectacular end, but the mayor proposes to Donna Rae, ensuring that she will be judge rather than contestant the following year. This amusing tale takes place in a sort of generic mid-twentieth-century small town. Vivid colors and sharp, glossy edges give a hyperrealistic aura to the art.”
Booklist

“…With detail and humor, the richly hued illustrations capture the look and feel of small-town America in a not-so-distant past. The art and the folksy telling are like a cross between a county fair and The Music Man.”
School Library Journal