The Donut Chef

“On this street where people stop, / I’ll open up my donut shop.” So begins a good-natured donut chef’s entrepreneurial endeavor to establish Donut Land. Word spreads of his delicious culinary creations, and soon his customer line extends out the door. However, the success of his shop attracts the attention of another donut chef, and an intense donut competition extravaganza ensues when the second scheming chef enters the first chef’s thriving business and threatens, “Your shop is through . . . / When my shop opens next to you!” Caught up in a crazy donut arms race, the two chefs are led to creating more and more extravagant donut creations while also engaging in unsustainable price wars. “If one would scream, ‘Buy two, get three!’ / The other yelled, ‘But mine are FREE!’” Eventually the scene is so bad that the donuts become unrecognizable as donuts. “They’d lost their taste, they’d lost their soul. / They’d even lost their donut hole!” But the madness comes to a sudden stop when sweet little Debbie Sue, reminiscent of young Cindy Lou Who, comes into the shop and makes a donut request not heard of in ages. With particularly enjoyable original rhyming and cadence, and full of colorful, creative depictions of bakeries and sweet concoctions in Staake’s distinct geometrical based illustration style, this book is a tasty, delightful story that will make you hungry for another read (and a donut).