posted on 02 Dec 2016

As Nice as Pie by Gary Sheppard, illustrated by Tim Budgen

I do like a cheerful cover on a picture book to entice me to look inside so what could be better than a jolly bespectacled grey haired woman wielding a pastry brush over a pie crust? At the top of the page there are two birds holding some pastry and flying towards the centre . At the bottom of the page are two bigger birds, one looking longingly up at the pie and the other looking out at us as if to invite us to the promised feast.  All the birds are wearing colourful bibs.

More and more bib wearing birds appear on the end papers, yet more pies and feathers to focus the mind on the theme of the story and then we are off. The rhyming text on the first page tells us more about the woman as she stands in her garden holding a loaf of freshly baked bread:

Mavis Manewaring was kindly and caring

She loved nothing more than cooking and sharing

She starts off by generously giving some bread to one bird , the next day two arrive and she gives them biscuits, on the third day three arrive to eat a batch of buns and so it continues until there are hundreds in her garden expecting to be fed. So a problem has arisen because some of them are looking positively fat bellied and assume a somewhat menacing tone as they hover over her as she struggles along the path with yet more cooking ingredients.

There were potbellied pigeons, a rather round rook

Impatiently waiting for Mavis to cook

Their demands become loud and oppressive and by the middle of the book the poor woman looks increasingly harassed. Back in the kitchen she devises a cunning plan and makes a forty foot pie (no metric measures in storybooks it seems). She invites them inside her house and we see that they are now wearing their bibs as blindfolds for a promised dish called ‘Birdie Surprise’. They get their come- uppance when she reveals that they are the surprise pie filling!

Don’t be alarmed because after all this is a children’s book and Mavis is ultimately kind because she gives them a reasonable choice: either they can be cooked or they can help her to open her dream  pie shop ( if only real life was that simple). They make the sensible choice and then work alongside her in the kitchen which reminded me of the scene in Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves where all the woodland creatures help out. After a period of impressive and co- operative industry the ‘Nice as Pie’ shop opens at last and everyone is happy:

The team’s tasty pies all flew from the shelves,

and they cheered with a feeling of pride in themselves

I enjoyed this colourfully illustrated, upbeat picture book and can imagine it being used in nurseries and schools. As well as being a good story, there could be links made with looking out for all the different birds mentioned in the text. There is also a strong theme about kindness, sharing and working together for a common goal. However, I do hope that Mavis didn’t exploit the hardworking birds and paid them all with sufficient cakes, buns and pies.  There could be some interesting discussion about all these aspects and hopefully some real baking to follow too.   

Karen Argent

December 2016