Sorry, Mrs Cake

A small boy and his rather sardonic blue cat decide they must help Mrs Cake, who has made a feast for everyone at the village fair.  As the food is in a tent, and no one has found it, the three of them make the rounds to tell the people it is there.  But what is this?  The dads are too busy with duck races to listen, the mums are too busy gossiping, the big kids run away, and the grandparents are dancing.  What to do?  The cat comes up with the answer: ‘if we bring the little kids, the mums and dads will come’; they, in turn will bring the big kids.  Problem solved, and there is soon a large crowd gathered eating the delicious food, and the little boy tells them all that they must say ‘Sorry’ to Mrs Cake.  The illustrations in this remarkable picture book with little text is absolutely chock-a-block with people doing things, each one caught in a moment in time, mouths open, making points with hands and arms, talking, talking, but never listening, and it is only the little boy who makes them all see what they have done.  Mrs Cake has only one line in the book at the very end when after everyone has said sorry and thanked her, she replies, ‘You are all very welcome.’  Wonderfully inventive and sophisticated in approach.