Thoughts after translating “The Cake Ran Away!”, which won the 1954 Caldecott Honor.

 

 

The cov­er of “The Cake Ran Away!”

 

This is a sto­ry that is some­what absurd yet excep­tion­al­ly cheer­ful.

Inside pages of “The Cake Ran Away!”

 

    On one side of Ding­guagua Moun­tain lived an elder­ly cou­ple and their helper, a boy named Lü Xing. Their world was peace­ful and beau­ti­ful until—all their ani­mals were gone. The old cou­ple decid­ed to send Lü Xing to find new employ­ment so he could live a bet­ter life.
Before Lü Xing left, the old lady spe­cial­ly pre­pared a trav­el cake for him. As Lü Xing began his jour­ney, the cake rolled away. Along the way, Lü Xing and the cake passed through var­i­ous places, and ani­mals every­where they went joined the chase… Lü Xing brought back a large group of ani­mals, and the old cou­ple were over­joyed. Life returned to its tran­quil­i­ty; they hugged, sang, and cel­e­brat­ed. It turns out, life is full of unex­pect­ed opportunities—isn’t that true?

 

Inside pages of “The Cake Ran Away!”

 

The most fun char­ac­ter in the sto­ry is prob­a­bly the boy helper.Lü Xing—Yes, the pro­nun­ci­a­tion is the same astrav­elSame! SoTrav­el cakeIn the end, it will becomeLvx­ing Cake!thisLü XingWhat kind of per­son is he?

 

 

To be hon­est, he was an excep­tion­al­ly opti­mistic boy. No mat­ter what hap­pened, he seemed capa­ble of con­tin­u­ing to whis­tle, hop­ping along on his left foot, right foot, left foot… Until that day when his last ration of food…Trav­el cakeThey ran away! Yes, it’s only here that we might real­ize the true pro­tag­o­nist of this sto­ry is a round…Trav­el cake!

 

 

Inside pages of “The Cake Ran Away!”

 

Can we catch the cake that’s run away so hap­pi­ly? How can we catch it? Will it go hun­gry if we can’t? —Don’t wor­ry, this is a per­fect­ly hap­py end­ing. The author tells the sto­ry in a very smooth way, and the illus­tra­tor draws it just as smooth­ly. Notice how cir­cles appear through­out the entire book? The cake is still spin­ning in cir­cles even at the very end…

 

Inside pages of “The Cake Ran Away!”

 

Don’t believe me? Look, even when they’re divid­ing the cake at the end, there are so many cir­cles in the pic­ture—

 

Inside pages of “The Cake Ran Away!”

 

Such a hap­py end­ing is quite enjoy­able to read. The sto­ry has a strong tra­di­tion­al folk tale fla­vor, inter­spersed with nurs­ery rhymes, which are repeat­ed con­stant­ly, and the plot is lay­ered until it brings a sur­pris­ing hap­py end­ing.

 

What’s par­tic­u­lar­ly amus­ing is that this book is still… A cre­ative duo of a gold medal son-in-law and a gold medal moth­er-in-law! The son-in-law is Robert McCloskey, a two-time Calde­cott Medal win­ner, and the moth­er-in-law is Ruth Sawyer, the 1937 New­bery Medal win­ner.

 

Ruth Sawyer

 

Let’s start with the author, Ruth Sawyer, who lived to a very old age. She was a renowned Amer­i­can sto­ry­teller, chil­dren’s book author, and teacher. She was an excep­tion­al­ly skilled sto­ry­teller and writer. She also had a tal­ent for col­lect­ing, orga­niz­ing, and retelling folk tales, a skill sim­i­lar to that of the Broth­ers Grimm. How­ev­er, what tru­ly made her famous was her 1937 New­bery Medal-win­ning chil­dren’s nov­el, *Lucin­da the Roller Skat­ing Girl*.

 

 

How­ev­er, the sto­ry of “Jour­ney Cake, Ho!” was born thanks to her abil­i­ty to com­pile and retell folk tales. The sto­ry’s pre­de­ces­sor may have come from “Jour­ney Cake” in Joseph Jacobs’ “Eng­lish Fairy Tales”. The orig­i­nal text of this clas­sic Eng­lish fairy tale is attached at the end of the arti­cle for com­par­i­son.

 

Orig­i­nal cov­er of “The Eng­lish Fairy Tales”

 

Fur­ther­more, atten­tive read­ers can also find echoes of clas­sic fairy tales like “The Gold­en Goose,” “The Gin­ger­bread Man,” and “The Pan­cake” in this sto­ry. For instance, in “The Gold­en Goose,” a series of peo­ple chas­ing the gold­en goose end up stuck togeth­er, while “The Gin­ger­bread Man” and “The Pan­cake” are both sto­ries of food escap­ing and ulti­mate­ly end­ing up in the mouths of cun­ning fox­es or pigs. The sto­ry of “The Pan­cake” from “100 Endur­ing Human Sto­ries” is also includ­ed at the end for com­par­i­son.

 

Ruth Sawyer’s sto­ry, *The Cake Ran Away!*, is set in the Amer­i­can moun­tains. The pro­tag­o­nist, Lu Xun, embod­ies the “fool” arche­type from tra­di­tion­al folktales—a care­free, opti­mistic per­son who acts on instinct with a cheer­ful dis­po­si­tion, lack­ing guile and always find­ing good for­tune in sim­ple things. Com­pared to the folk­tales men­tioned ear­li­er, Ruth’s sto­ry is the most ful­fill­ing and joy­ful!

 

Robert McCloskey

 

Then there’s the illus­tra­tor, Robert McCloskey (1914–2003), who also lived a long life. This mas­ter pic­ture book author did­n’t pro­duce a large num­ber of works, but his award-win­ning rate was very high, receiv­ing two Calde­cott Medals and three Calde­cott Hon­ors. Take a look at his award-win­ning works; are there any you’ve read and enjoyed?

 

The gold medal-win­ning work, “Make Way for the Duck­lings”

 

Gold Award Win­ning Work: “Beau­ti­ful Times”

 

Sil­ver Award Win­ner: “Morn­ing by the Sea”

 

Sil­ver Award Win­ner: “Lit­tle Sel Pick­ing Blue­ber­ries”

 

Are all of them clas­sics? Among them, *Make Way for Duck­lings* is prob­a­bly the most pop­u­lar, because it gave McClossky some sav­ings, allow­ing him to buy prop­er­ty on Deer Island, Maine, and live a seclud­ed artist’s life. *Lit­tle Sel Pick­ing Blue­ber­ries* is based on his fam­i­ly’s life there; Lit­tle Sel is his eldest daugh­ter, and Sel’s moth­er is depict­ed in the book based on Ruth Sawyer’s daugh­ter, Mar­garet. Sel lat­er had a younger sis­ter, which can be seen in *Morn­ing on the Beach*. As the younger sis­ter grew old­er, she could sail freely with Sel around Deer Island; their sto­ry is in *Good Times*. —Just imag­ine, because he won the Calde­cott Medal, he had the mon­ey to live a seclud­ed life in such a beau­ti­ful place, then turned that seclud­ed life into a book, and con­tin­ued to win gold and sil­ver medals! Where else in the world can you find such a good thing?! It must be said, Robert McClossky was very for­tu­nate.

 

Just a lit­tle gos­sip: why did Robert become Ruth Sawyer’s son-in-law? How did they come to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work togeth­er? It must have been due to their shared edit­ing…May MasseyThat’s rel­e­vant. To learn more about this leg­endary edi­tor’s sto­ry, you can read the rel­e­vant sec­tion of *A Short His­to­ry of Pic­ture Books*.

 

Leg­endary edi­tor May Massey

 

 

 

Read­ers famil­iar with Robert McCloskey’s style might find “The Cake Ran Away!” a bit unlike his work; we can com­pare it to the style of “Make Way for the Duck­lings”—

 

Spe­cial-col­ored inner pages for “Make Way for the Duck­lings”

 

Inside pages of “The Cake Ran Away!”

 

“The Cake Ran Away!” fea­tures a rather rare wood­cut style in McClossky’s work; per­haps only in this way can the sto­ry appear par­tic­u­lar­ly old-fash­ioned, com­ple­ment­ing Ruth Sawyer’s vin­tage folk­tale charm. It’s said that cre­at­ing this book was a chal­lenge for McClossky, and judg­ing from the result, he was a great suc­cess!

 

The com­bi­na­tion of some absurd and cheer­ful sto­ries with rather exag­ger­at­ed and cheer­ful illus­tra­tions makes up this cheer­ful clas­sic.

 

   More similar and fun versions of the story—

 

The Gold­en Goose – Yuri Shul­witz’s Retelling

 

Gin­ger­bread Man

 

The Nor­we­gian folk­tale “The Pan­cake” (from “100 Endur­ing Sto­ries of Human­i­ty”)

The Nor­we­gian folk­tale “The Pan­cake”

 

Eng­lish folk­tale John­ny-Cake

 

The orig­i­nal Eng­lish text is as fol­lows:

 

Johnny-Cake

 

Once upon a time there was an old man, and an old woman, and a lit­tle boy. One morn­ing the old woman made a John­ny-cake, and put it in the oven to bake. “You watch the John­ny-cake while your father and I go out to work in the gar­den.” So the old man and the old woman went out and began to hoe pota­toes, and left the lit­tle boy to tend the oven. popped open, and out of the oven jumped John­ny-cake, and went rolling along end over end, towards the open door of the house. The lit­tle boy ran to shut the door, but John­ny-cake was too quick for him and rolled through the door, down the steps, and out into the road long before the lit­tle boy could catch him. three a long way, and was soon out of sight, while they had to sit down, all out of breath, on a bank to rest.

On went John­ny-cake, and by-and-by he came to two well-dig­gers who looked up from their work and called out: “Where ye going, John­ny-cake?”“

He said: “I’ve out­run an old man, and an old woman, and a lit­tle boy, and I can out­run you too-oo!”“

““Ye can, can ye? we’ll see about that?” said they; and they threw down their picks and ran after him, but could­n’t catch up with him, and soon they had to sit down by the road­side to rest.

On ran John­ny-cake, and by-and-by he came to two ditch-dig­gers who were dig­ging a ditch. “Where ye going, John­ny-cake?” said they. He said: “I’ve out­run an old man, and an old woman, and a lit­tle boy, and two well-dig­gers, and I can out­run you too-oo!”“

““Ye can, can ye? we’ll see about that!” said they; and they threw down their spades, and ran after him too. But John­ny-cake soon out­stripped them also, and see­ing they could nev­er catch him, they gave up the chase and sat down to rest.

On went John­ny-cake, and by-and-by he came to a bear. The bear said: “Where are ye going, John­ny-cake?”“

He said: “I’ve out­run an old man, and an old woman and a lit­tle boy, and two well-dig­gers, and two ditch-dig­gers, and I can out­run you too- oo!”“

““Ye can, can ye?” grew the bear, “we’ll see about that!” and trot­ted as fast as his legs could car­ry him after John­ny-cake, who nev­er stopped to look behind him. Before long the bear was left so far behind that he saw he might as well give up the hunt first as last, so he stretched him­self out by the road­side to rest.

On went John­ny-cake, and by-and-by he came to a wolf. The wolf said: – “Where ye going, John­ny-cake?” He said: “I’ve out­run an old man, and an old woman, and a lit­tle boy, and two well-dig­gers, and two ditch-dig­gers and a bear, and I can out­run you too-oo!”

““Ye can, can ye?” snarled the wolf, “we’ll see about that!” And he set into a gal­lop after John­ny-cake, who went on and on so fast that the wolf too saw there was no hope of over­tak­ing him, and he too lay down to rest.

On went John­ny-cake, and by-and-by he came to a fox that lay qui­et­ly in a cor­ner of the fence. The fox called out in a sharp voice, but with­out get­ting up: “Where ye going John­ny-cake?”“

He said: “I’ve out­run an old man, and an old woman, and a lit­tle boy, and two well-dig­gers, and two ditch-dig­gers, a bear, and a wolf, and I can out­run you too-oo!”“

The fox said: “I can’t quite hear you, John­ny-cake, won’t you come a lit­tle clos­er?” turn­ing his head a lit­tle to one side.

John­ny-cake stopped his race for the first time, and went a lit­tle clos­er, and called out in a very loud voice “I’ve out­run an old man, and an old woman, and a lit­tle boy, and two well-dig­gers, and two ditch-dig­gers, and a bear, and a wolf, and I can out­run you too-o‑o.”“

““Can’t quite hear you; won’t you come a lit­tle clos­er?” said the fox in a fee­ble voice, as he stretched out his neck towards John­ny-cake, and put one paw behind his ear.

John­ny-cake came up close, and lean­ing towards the fox screamed out: I’VE OUTRUN AN OLD MAN, AND AN OLD WOMAN, AND A LITTLE BOY, AND TWO WELL-DIGGERS, AND TWO DITCH-DIGGERS, AND A BEAR, AND A WOLF, AND I CAN OUTRUN YOU TOO-OO!””

““You can, can you?” yelped the fox, and he snapped up the John­ny-cake in his sharp teeth in the twin­kling of an eye.

 

—From Joseph Jacob­s’s *Eng­lish Fairy Tales*