E Oma, Rapeti - Te Tunu Keke. Run, Rabbit - Cake Bake product reviews

Mr Five has been at school for nearly nine months now, and it is amazing how quickly he has learned to read simple texts and master different skills. Being at a kura kaupapa means he is exposed to two different languages every day, so reading a book in both English and Te Reo Maori is a lot of fun as he gets to show off how much he can understand. He still needs a lot of help to decode many of the written words, but like his older sisters he is keen to learn and very proud when he is able to demonstrate something new.

Cooking is one of those things that have always fascinated him. Like a lot of children, he loves his food and is always asking if he can help prepare it. Having three older sisters has meant he often gets told he is too little, but to his credit he keeps trying! His mother allows him to lick the spoon occasionally, but as he watches the others being permitted to weigh and mix ingredients, he keeps on insisting that he is big enough to help too.

As we read through the book together, he became very excited when Rapeti was allowed to help. The book does not say how old he is, but Mr Five assured me that he was five years old too. The most exciting event was when Rapeti went to the henhouse to get an egg for the cake; Mr Five's family have their own hens too, and getting the eggs is one of the jobs that he is trusted to do.

An eternal chorus from children everywhere is the question "Is it ready yet?" and its running mate, "Are we there yet?" It takes a certain amount of maturity to learn to be patient, and whether you say "Kua rite?" or "Is it ready?", the answer is always the same. We loved the way the countdown to the alert on the oven uses the numbers from tekau/ten down to tahi/one. Counting in reverse is nowhere near as easy as counting forward; this is a lovely way of including a learning opportunity in the story.

As in the previous books in this series, the illustrations are utterly delightful. They are easy to understand, meaning that a child who cannot yet read, or is just starting to recognise written words, can follow the story simply by looking at the pictures in sequence. Mr Five and I especially liked the carrot decoration on the cake in the final illustration. Well, after all, what sort of cake would you expect a rabbit to enjoy?