Jack Dash and the Great Custard Cake-Off

Jack Dash, Coco McBean and Pablo (a penguin) have a crisis on their hands. Mrs Dash is taking part in the Cake-off Competition at Custard Castle but the trio need to warn her about aliens they’ve just spotted in the sky. Her life is in danger!

Luckily, Jack has a magic feather that lets you draw into creation anything you choose, so Coco draws a contraption to carry them all to Mrs Dash. However, along the way, they meet a herd of angry yak, and during the ensuing chaos, end up firing Lord Crumble, the cake-off judge into space!

Drawing a new judge makes matters worse as the new creation, a rogue cowboy called Betty Crocker, causes more problems than he fixes. Mrs Dash is desperate to be crowned champion, but time is running out.

This crazy, carefree story has plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and some wild, imagination-stretching storylines, such as a peahen falling in love with a penguin, and a cake so hard from overbaking it causes a castle to crumble. With a large font, simple language, and a focus on adventure rather than description, this book is great for girls and boys moving on from shorter chapter books.