February 27, 2026 by Maria
On a busy Monday afternoon, I picked my younger two kids up from school and trekked out on a short list of errands with them in tow. They were not thrilled to say the least, however, after our first stop at the library they were pretty quiet because their noses were in books the rest of the time, which impressed the post office worker. She had a delighted smile as she watched them read while waiting in line.
While at the library earlier, all three of us were delighted to find a new Bakery Dragon book, The Bakery Dragon and the Fairy Cake, on the library’s shelf. (In 2024 I wrote about the first Ember book by Devin Elle Kurtz in a blog post). We were happy to see the return of Ember, the bread baking dragon, and his floury adventures. I read the book with my kids that night when we finally settled down on the couch for a few minutes after pajamas and teeth, shortly before bed.
In the story, a small visitor arrives at the bakery with the special request that Ember bake a birthday cake for the fairy queen. Ember quickly learns that a birthday cake is not a bread or a roll or scrumptious flatbread drizzled in honey. His fairy companion is quick to shoot down all of Ember’s delicious to hilariously odious attempts to fulfill her request until they visit the local library for just the right book: a cook book. Armed with a recipe, Ember bakes a beautiful cake and goes on to learn how to make more confectious wonders. My kids enjoyed the Turnip fairy’s constant frustration with Ember’s not-a-cake cakes. Just like the first book, the illustrations are cute and the breads and (most of) the “not-a-cake” concoctions look scrumptious!
Besides enjoying the scrumptiously illustrated breads, I enjoyed going back and reading the notes left around the bakery by Ember and Bea and the titles of books on the town’s library shelves. The vegetable fairies live in pumpkin and gourd houses.This was something my daughter and I found exceptionally cute! I like that Ember isn’t defeated by his lack of cake knowledge. He perseveres and overcomes his knowledge lacking problems with self education and experimentation.
This book surprisingly provided us with an opening to talk about perseverance and the importance of not giving up. If a dragon can learn not only to bake bread but cake too, then maybe we can try learning a new skill as well. Perseverance isn’t always easy. We need all the encouragement we can get to keep going.
More Bookshelves Please 