Chocolate Cake by Michael Rosen and Kevin Waldron (Picture Puffin)

I have to bow to my wife and daughter's expertise on the subject of Chocolate Cake...
You see, if we ever visit a cafe or sit down for a lovely lunch somewhere, I can guarantee that these two will be hankering after just one thing for dessert. A lovely slice of chocolate cake.

Michael Rosen's awesome poem "Chocolate Cake" gets the picture book treatment, with some utterly eatable illustrations from Kevin ("Harold's Hungry Eyes") Waldron.

It seems like a match made in heaven as we learn what it was like for Michael as a little boy with a sweet tooth. His mum would bake up a storm, making the most amazing chocolate cakes and if Michael was lucky, he'd get a slice in his school lunchbox if there was any left over.

But one night the siren song of that sweet comestible proves too much for the lad. He tries to nibble just a few crumbs on the end of a sticky finger, he tries to chip off a couple of bits to tidy the cake up...

Chocolate cake. Gawd, I wish I'd had some in MY school lunchbox. All I got was a bag of Quavers and a curly sarnie.

Needless to say, one thing leads to another and before long the whole cake is GONE! In Michael's tummy no less.

Struggling to hide the evidence of his crime, he washes the plate up - and goes off to bed for a long blissful choccy filled sleep. But will his wrongdoing be discovered by Mum? What will she do when she realises the cake is gone?

Right off the back of reviewing "I Really Want the Cake" by Simon Philip and Lucia Gaggiotti, this is another great tale of a midnight feast gone wrong. In both cases it's a chocolate cake so there's definitely a bit of cross pollination going on somewhere.

We loved this though, particularly Michael's crazed sugar lust ramblings and Kevin's glorious good-enough-to-eat choccy cake illustrations.

Charlotte's best bit: The cake, the glorious cake. What else would it be!?

Daddy's favourite bit: I would love to see this catch on, I mean brilliant poems like this being given the picture book treatment (and there are SO MANY in Michael Rosen's back catalogue that would make a great fit). Such a great team too with Kevin.

(kindly supplied for review - sans cake).

"Chocolate Cake" by Michael Rosen and Kevin Waldron is out now, published by Picture Puffin.