Rene is a chef with a dream: to open a café that serves her carefully crafted “fine cuisine.” And after hard work saving up “every bean” and constructing “a building beam by beam,” she’s thrilled to be opening The Café at the Edge of the Woods.
In his picture book debut, London-based Mikey Please—a BAFTA award winner and Oscar nominee for animated short films—fills every page with expertly and engagingly rendered cartoon art. His color palette glows with browns, greens and oranges, perfect for a woodsy café overflowing with funky flower arrangements.
To Rene’s chagrin, this charming eatery doesn’t make a splash right away. Her “Waiter Wanted” sign resulted in just one applicant, a little green fellow named Glumfoot. And although it’s been days since the grand opening, no customers have arrived.
Fortunately, Glumfoot’s a go-getter. He heads into the woods and returns with a gigantic ogre, who listens politely as Rene reads him her hand-chalked blackboard menu. When she suggests truffle stew with peas and long grain rice, the ogre requests “bats! And slugs and buttered mice!” Would he prefer a cheddar tart? No, he wants “a bag of bats! That smells like fart!”
Rene is frustrated, but Glumfoot urges his boss to hang in there: The ogre will try the tart after all. Little does Rene know that, after some artful rearranging by Glumfoot (a master of marketing and diplomacy if ever there was one), the tart gets “flipped onto its back, so it looked like a pickled bat” and “The rice became . . . maggot fondue! The whole lot looked disgusting.”
Of course, to the ogre, disgusting is delightful! And to Rene, serving the food she adores (even if it looks ickier than she planned) is a dream come true. The Café at the Edge of the Woods is a wacky and wonderful ode to ingenuity and flexibility, topped with a hearty serving of teamwork and a dash of panache. Fans of Please’s funny, expressive illustrations and clever storytelling will be happy to know a second book in this new series will be served up soon. Chef’s kiss!
