PPBF: Junket is Nice

Author/Illustrator: Dorothy Kunhardt, author of Pat the Bunny
Publisher: The New York Review of Books, released 2013, copyright 1932, renewed 1961 (72 pages)
Age Level: 3-7
Themes: desserts, riddles
Opening: Once there was an old man with a red beard and red slippers. He was sitting at a table eating out of a big red bowl. He was eating junket out of the big red bowl. The old man ate and ate  and ate. More junket and more junket and more junket and more junket until at last people began to be very much surprised at how much junket he was eating and they began to tell their friends about him because he seemed to be such a very hungry old man. So people and their friends began coming to look at the old man eating his junket.
Summary: (From my library catalog) All the world puzzles over what an old man with a red beard and red slippers thinks about while eating an enormous bowl of a custard-like treat, but it is a little boy on a tricycle who solves the riddle.

Why I like it: At first it may seem a long book of simple nonsense, well, it is, but it is as addictive as the junket the old man is eating! As I put this one down, I believe I skipped away with a gentle swinging rhythm and the lilt of the old man’s final words in my ears! “Oh my oh my” – what more could one ask for in a book?

But what IS junket? A soft cheesy sort of custard – find out more in this article on epicurious.com HERE

I found this online labeled as a Danish dessert: