Picture Book and Play – Pancakes

Picture Book And Play is a weekly post in which we look at a picture book (or books) Peapod’s been enjoying recently and some of the play we’ve had based on it.

Tuesday was Pancake Day. I love Pancake Day – growing up it was always really fun, flipping (and dropping!) pancakes and filling them with as many sugary treats as possible (my best ever filling that always sticks in my memory being mint choc ice cream, chocolate sauce, caramel sauce and chocolate sprinkles).

Last year, Peapod wasn’t at all keen on pancakes but I was hoping he’d see sense this year. Sadly, he still turned his nose up, but he enjoyed making them – helping to pour, sift, whisk and mix (he was especially keen on the whisking!)

Obviously, he took a back seat for the flipping (leaving that to the experts!!) but helped to choose and chop the fruit to top them with.

Carefully arranging the fruit on his pancake before demolishing all the fruit on both plates and leaving the pancake untouched 😂

After helping with the real pancakes, I set up his tray with flour, water, bowls, whisk, spoons, sieve etc as well as his toy pan, plates and ‘toppings’ with yellow playdough for him to pretend to make his own.

He has LOVED doing this!

And of course, we’ve read some pancake stories too!

Our favourite has to be Mr Wolf’s Pancakes by Jan Fearnley, which we wrote about last year too. Peapod has loved this and we’ve read it at bedtime every day at least once usually twice, since Monday.

He woke on Tuesday and the first thing he asked was to “Play Mr Wolf’s Pancakes?!” So we were straight in the playroom at 6.45am acting it out before he went to nursery! He even switched his shop over to be the shop from the story!

Unfortunately I didn’t get any better pictures as we were too busy playing it!

We’ve also been reading Rhinos Don’t Eat Pancakes by Anna Kemp and Sara Ogilvie, which was one I’d not read before but we both really like.

It’s got a flavour of Not Now Bernard as Daisy is constantly ignored by her busy parents. And even a purple rhino showing up and stealing all the pancakes can’t get their attention. But a sign at the zoo about a missing rhino soon helps them see the error of their ways.

I love Sara Ogilvie’s gentle, colourful and expressive illustrations in this. I’ve written before about how well she captures ‘real life’ and her depictions of family life here do that perfectly.

Peapod loves the rhino. Not least the page with the rhino on the loo. And not least because he has an obsession with rhino poo (ever since we went to the zoo last year and the enclosure was a bit ‘fragrant’!)

And we’ve read Mairi Mckinnon and Silvia Provantini’s retelling of The Runaway Pancake which Peapod thinks is very funny indeed.

In this traditional tale which has many versions and similar tales the pancake hops out of the pan to escape its fate as fodder and makes a run for it, chased by the family. As it runs, it passes various animals who a join the chase until it reaches Pig, who’s got a much better idea than joining the chase…

We have of course played Runaway Pancake too, both chasing the ball and each other!

I appreciate this is a bit late for pancake day fun now, but both pancakes and pancake stories are for life, not just for pancake day!!

Did you have pancakes? Did you do any pancake play or reading?

Which picture books have you enjoyed this week?

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