The Great Granny Cake Contest!: Hubble Bubble Paperback – Illustrated, June 13, 2017

This book has great style, pacing and energy, and it seems like it would be very appealing to early independent readers.The premise is simple, but engaging. Granny is a witch and a bit of a whimsical loose cannon with her magic and her love of silly things. Her granddaughter Pandora is the more sober of the two, (but still a spunky kid), and the two of them lark about having adventures. The book is really a collection of three short stories that run about 40 pages each. We get to cause trouble at a fancy manor house museum, create chaos on a cooking show, and wreak havoc with some giant carrots at the school garden show. All ends well and no harm done.The book's text and illustrations work marvelously well together. The drawings are cheerful and expressive, (the book is heavily illustrated), and the text is placed nicely in and about the drawings, which is great for aiding a new reader trying to follow the action. Sometimes drawings in books like this can be too spare or abstract and don't help carry the story, but here we have crisp and clear line work that enhances enjoyment and understanding.So, a clever and entertaining set of tales, and a nice find for an early reader. (Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

What do you do when your Granny is a witch and won’t stop using her magic? Sometimes you just have to follow her around and clean up her messes! Hubble Bubble: The Great Granny Contest is a humorous collection of three stories about Pandora and her witchy Granny, Araminta Violet Crow.The Great Granny Contest begins with a family trip to Creakington Hall, a “stately home” full of dungeons and treasures. Pandora, Granny, and Pandora’s parents visit Creakington Hall for an afternoon tour of the old house.During the tour, Pandora’s parents read every information card. Granny is quickly bored, and begins making magic to keep herself interested. Soon, portraits are winking at guests, mannequins start a food fight, and a suit of armor is moving around the room. Pandora has to get everything back to normal, make sure people don’t suspect Granny of causing the trouble, and stop Granny from creating any more chaos!The other two stories in the book are equally amusing. In one, Granny and Pandora compete in the Great Granny Cake Contest, and the rules expressly prohibit using magic. But Pandora quickly discovers (on live TV) that Granny is not much of a baker when she can’t use magic to help her! In the last story, Granny helps Pandora and her school gardening club when the garden starts looking a little wilted. The garden doesn’t exactly look like it should when Granny is done with it!The Great Granny Contest is a chapter book by the creators of the Hubble Bubble picture books: author Tracey Corderoy and illustrator Joe Berger. Ms. Corderoy and Mr. Berger have joined together to publish five chapter books and three picture books starring Pandora and Granny.The Great Granny Contest is written in language that is easy for young readers to read. The stories are fun, the pacing is quick and keeps kids entertained, and the characters are lovable.I received an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review. Thank-you to Ms. Corderoy, Mr. Berger, and Candlewick Press for giving me this introduction to Pandora and Granny and the Hubble Bubble series!