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Chris Eliopoulos starts off his book with a song that introduces the world of Big Mama and her donut shop. It's like a Broadway musical about eating donuts, as each customer steps up and selects a different donut --- some kind of strange, but all baked with love.

The song, with its rollicking rhyme, is just a warmup for the main action, a slapstick story about the chaos that ensues when a fast-talking salesman introduces a donut-making machine into Big Mama's kitchen. A mere machine can't bake donuts with love, and everyone knows what happens when you put a robot in charge: chaos. When Big Mama's assistant dumps a can of garbage into the hopper, the machine shoots out a variety of unappetizing donuts --- chocolate fish, strawberry socks, rotten fruit. It's an exceedingly silly story, and while the plot isn't exactly original --- the machine that goes berserk has been a comedy standby since the invention of the lever --- Eliopoulos's execution is lively and fun.

The art in this book is exaggerated and cartoony, reminiscent of Nickelodeon cartoons, only even more stylized. While it has a certain retro charm, it is also very busy, especially considering the small format of the book. The pages seem crowded, and the low-key palette Eliopoulos has chosen makes it hard to distinguish foreground from background in some panels. It all blends into a single surface, with no sharp contrasts in value or hue to set off important areas. A larger page size, less detail, and more contrast would have made this an easier book to read.

Still, it's hard to resist such a good-hearted book. Mama's donut shop is a warm, cheerful place, and the story is a lot of fun (although it is likely to make you hungry). Eliopoulis plans more Okie Dokie Donuts books, and hopefully he will refine his technique a bit while keeping the same whimsical feel that makes this book such a delight.

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