Review of “Bentley Makes a Dump Cake” by Miki Taylor

Score: 95+/100 (9.5+ out of 10)

Bentley Makes a Dump Cake is yet another phenomenal, exceptional, fun-tabulous children's book by Miki Taylor! It is the direct and fitting sequel to Bentley's Fantabulous Idea, which was named our 2023 Children's Book of the Year!

Let's put that into perspective: the previous book, Bentley's Fantabulous Idea, broke the biggest glass ceiling in our contest's history, becoming the VERY FIRST children's book to achieve a 9.6/10 score!

Like its predecessor, Bentley Makes a Dump Cake is brilliantly and vibrantly illustrated by Eunhye Shin. Boy, oh, boy, does Eunhye Shin put time, energy, and effort into their illustrations! Each character, page, and panel is painstakingly detailed, drawn, and colored BY HAND! You just don't see that much anymore with A.I. and cell-shading techniques being rampant.

We greatly appreciate the tremendous effort that Eunhye Shin put into these two books. There are illustrations in here, like on pages 27 & 28, that features DOZENS of characters—all of them in different positions, making different expressions, and doing different things!

The attention to detail is unprecedented!

For example, on page 27, there's an owl character who doesn't seem as cheerful or amused as the other characters. We can assume he has a lot on his mind and might be experiencing some stress in his life. Or maybe he's just a crabby person.

In the extensive, exhaustive character biography section at the end of the book, we learn that this character is named “Oscar Owl” and that he actually is a bit of a downer, telling us that his room is a “disaster” and that he's “messy and lazy.” We could've gathered that just by looking at ONE illustration!

Speaking of that character bio section, it actually goes to show how much thought and effort that Miki Taylor put into this book, this series, and its characters as well! Each character is unique in their own special way. Like Oscar, they all have their own special personalities, likes, dislikes, wants, needs, and things that make them tick.

These characters even seem to have their own ethnic/national backgrounds like Le'on Lion is from Jamaica. He loves to sing!

Helga Hippo is French and a former Parisian who immigrated to the United States. She is fancy and flashy, wanting to become the CEO of a fashion company.

Grady Gorilla, despite being big, muscular, and confidently dressed in football pads, is actually very shy and might suffer from social anxiety. He's also emotional, admitting to crying when watching TV sometimes.

Coco Centipede achieves the seemingly impossible: being a CUTE CENTIPEDE character!
Coco even has shoes for each of their many feet!

Kakai Kangaroo is a swimmer who dreams of going to Auburn University and making the Olympics someday!

Eloise Elephant, who is in the healthcare field, dives in the same pool that Kakai Kangaroo swims in. It seems as thought Kakai Kangaroo and Eloise Elephant may be romantically interested in each other! Sweet!

DeeDee Dolphin is the beauty pageant winner in the group who wants to win the Miss Animal Kingdom pageant!

Gosh, we could talk about these characters for hours!

They even have their own favorite colors and individual birthdays!
This whole Bentley universe just seems so fun, lively, and lived-in!

We haven't even really gotten into the plot, and we're already glowing about this book!

Well, this book rejoins Bentley (the dog), Betty (his owner/best-friend), and Mr. Bee (their buddy) as they try out a new hobby: BAKING!

While the previous book seemed to have a bigger, broader scope, using photography as a way to introduce readers to Bentley's fun, wild community/world, this book has a much more focused and confined scope. In fact, most of the book actually takes place in the kitchen as Bentley, Betty, and Mr. Bee join George Giraffe, the neighborhood baking wiz.

George Giraffe is one of the main characters of this particular book since he attempts to guide and encourage Bentley (mainly) on the process of baking a cake.

However, like many kids (and first-time bakers), he is impatient and not well-acquainted with actually properly measuring the many different ingredients.

He decides to just “DUMP DUMP DUMP” ingredients randomly and in different proportions, sometimes resulting in humorous results like a cake that looks like it has a crater in it. Now, as an aside, this is something we actually experienced baking a cake FOR A WEDDING! So, this is something we could relate with.

However, the book (and George Giraffe) goes from pointing out how not measuring ingredients could be misguided to showing us that some randomness and experimentation can actually be fun and result in something special, unique, and even tasty!

Just because what you make doesn't look like what's on TV or in magazines doesn't make it automatically bad. In fact, you might just make something exceptional and extraordinary, like this book!

This book is actually quite chaotic, messy, and disordered similar to the dump cake that Bentley and friends make. It might be a bit much for some people. There are A LOT of colors and a lot happening on every page. The font is actually on the fancier, fluffier side, which might make it a little challenging to read or keep track of. It's sensory overload! However, that's part of the beauty of it.

There's a lot to gain and a lot to find on each and every page!

In fact, the author challenges us to find the ingredients hidden on each page. We're also invited to keep track of a special bird, a red cardinal, whom we are told represents a belief in the author's culture that deceased loved ones come to visit us in the form of animals like birds. It's a really sentimental and beautiful way of the author honoring her loved one, “Mammalw,” who she wants to memorialize as part of her author journey.

All of this baking leads to the cake's big reveal for a big, huge Friends Day party in which dozens of characters celebrate good food and time together.

Check it out on the author's website!