The Rascally Cake by Jeanne Willis and Korky Paul (Picture Puffin)

More locally generated genius, this time in the form of Korky Paul's superbly detailed illustrations. Coupled with Jeanne Willis' supreme talent for funny (and quite ghastly) rhymes, "The Rascally Cake" was a bit of a 'find' in our local library (we thought we'd seen just about everything Korky Paul had draw, we were definitely wrong!)

It's the tale of a rather foul gent called Rufus O' Parsley who has rather odd culinary tastes. If it's rancid, rotten, grim, gooey, icky, mouldy, manky, gross, squishy, slithery or downright unpalatable Rufus is in his element.

His diet gets the better of him one day when he decides to cram all the world's most disgusting ingredients into a cake. Made in a dustbin, lovingly garnished with old toenail clippings, bogeys and snot, Rufus doesn't realise that food takes on a life of its own when it gets below a point of griminess.

The cake suddenly springs to life. Worse than that, the cake has rather taken a fancy to Rufus - fancying him for tea!

It's masterfully icky stuff that's a giggle from start to finish. If you've ever wondered what happens to food when it slides oozily past its sell by date, you'll love this book.

Charlotte's best bit: The icky cake slithering under the door! Yikes!

Daddy's favourite bit: I love Korky Paul's inventiveness, and one of these days I'm going to decipher all those cyrillic phrases he keeps hiding in his work!