Pantaloon

Kathryn Jackson's Pantaloon is a picture book for 5 year olds about a poodle who would very much like a job in a bakery.

What happens

Pantaloon has a shiny red bicycle and a serious weakness. He rides straight to the Baker's shop most mornings because he can never get enough of those delicious baked-and-iced things.

Inside, the Baker (who looks like a jolly round potato) is making a list of everything he has to bake before noon. Pies. Cakes with strawberry icing. Gingerbread men with sugar and spicing. Twelve wedding cakes with lots of layers, nine birthday cakes, and chocolate eclairs.

It's too much for one baker, so he puts a HELP WANTED sign in the window.

Pantaloon is through the door in a flash, licking his lips.

The Baker takes one look at him and says no. A dog like that, he reckons, would put away a great deal more cake than he would ever manage to bake. Then he opens the door nice and wide and says goodbye.

So Pantaloon comes back as a very nice old lady in a big bonnet and a blue shawl who is a lovely cook and never, ever eats between meals. The Baker is so delighted he dances her round and round the shop, which is when the shawl catches on the counter and the bonnet bounces off.

Off Pantaloon goes to the barbershop, where he sits being clipped and combed and curled and thinking up his next plan.

Then his bicycle rolls in front of the Baker's door at exactly the wrong moment, and down comes the Baker, sugar and hat and all, in a heap.

This is a short one, the whole story in a single sitting, and it is built for reading out loud. The list of cakes practically rhymes and children will start joining in with it. There's a lot of hurrying and a lot of flopping about (a poodle in a bonnet, a poodle in the bath, a poodle hiding behind a big green umbrella).

What makes it more than a chase is that Pantaloon is not actually greedy. He wants the job. He tries on all his hats at home and pretends each one looks finer than a tall white baker's hat, and he doesn't fool himself for a second.

What to read next

If your reader enjoys a very determined animal, Tawny Scrawny Lion is in the library too. It's by the same writer and it opens with a lion who catches something different every day of the week and somehow only gets hungrier.