Nice pictures. Subtle message about ocean litter.

Equal parts silly and ecoconscious, this book brings a pastel cartoon aesthetic to the sort of friendly undersea community one might recall from Eric Carle's Mister Seahorse. Crab bakes cakes, which forms a touchstone for the community and inspires them to work together when they are inundated in ocean trash. ( )

"Crab Cake" is a fun under the sea adventure. The book follows multiple sea creatures and explains what each fish can do. For example: the seahorse hides, the pufferfish puffs, the dolphin blows bubbles and the crab bakes cakes. One day, a ship dumps a ton of trash into the ocean. The sea creatures are terrified from this disaster. Crab begins to bake cakes and the other animals realize everything is okay. They work together to clean up their home and put all of the trash on land. I enjoyed reading this book because it focuses on teamwork and coming together as a group. I believe students in the classroom could relate to each sea creature. This book also has a strong environmental message. We need to take care of our earth and protect the animals on land and in the sea. ( )

I appreciated the text phonetically spelling out the word 'anemone' because it is one of those words I say differently every time. The illustrations was beautiful, detailed and creatively shaded. I love what the sea creatures did at the end, telling the humans to 'come get your junk'. It is a simple, effective, but not preachy approach to understanding ocean pollution and the effects humans have on ocean life. ( )