Characters: Iguana, big brown rooster, turtle, pig, dog, cat, and goose
Setting: kitchen
Plot: Rooster wants to make a strawberry shortcake and asks for help, but only Turtle, Iguana, and pig offer their help. However, Iguana keeps making mistakes when he is trying to help.
Genre: Humorous fiction
Perspective: Third-person view
The humorous fiction, Cook-a-Doodle-Doo, written by Janet Stevens talks about the rooster who wants to cook a strawberry shortcake. Rooster is bored of chicken feed and wants to eat something different: a strawberry shortcake. Turtle, Iguana, and Pig offer their help with their own strengths. While they are following the recipe, Iguana keeps making mistakes by grabbing the wrong items. But with Rooster’s explanation, Iguana learns how to measure flour (not with a ruler) and how to beat an egg (not with a baseball bat). When they finish the cake, Iguana accidentally drops it. Together they make the second cake, the better one!
Teamwork makes the job being done with efficiency and productivity since every team member contributes their own strengths. Teamwork enables team members to share their abilities, ideas, and responsibilities for the job, which helps reduce the stress on everyone. Turtle, Iguana, and Pig help Rooster to make the cake. Turtle can read recipes, Iguana can get stuff, and Pig can taste. Rooster is like the leader giving explanations and doing the steps of making the cake. Together, they make a team. Compared to working by oneself, working with two or more people is more beneficial. When two or more people work together as a team, their time used for finishing the job would be much less than one person. Each team member does the job he is really good at. Also, when one team member has a question, others can discuss with him and give him suggestions and advice, which reduces stress on everyone. Working in a team could encourage a person’s growth in knowledge, reduce working stress, bring better work outcomes, and increase job satisfaction.
Mistakes are valuable opportunities for people to grow and relearn something they don’t know or have not mastered yet. Learning from our mistakes is fundamental to make things right and not to make the mistake again in the future. Whenever Turtle needs some ingredient or tool, Iguana is always the first one to say “I can do that!” without listening or thinking carefully. Therefore, Iguana always makes mistakes. But the Rooster corrects Iguana so Iguana will learn from his mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. From the parts where people are wrong, they get to realize there is still something they do not know or they do not master. After the conversations from others who are around, people rethink their previous actions or ideas and gain a new understanding to fix their mistakes to improve their skills and expand their knowledge, hoping not to repeat the mistakes in the future. If people don’t learn from their mistakes, the same mistakes would be repeated over and over and it could be getting worse.
Practice makes perfect! The more people practice a skill or an activity, the better and perfect people will become at doing it. It is possible to learn something or develop a skill if people practice enough. Although Iguana accidentally dropped the first shortcake on the ground, Turtle, Iguana, Pig, and Rooster decide to make the second cake which is a lot easier than the first time. Together, they make the second most wonderful, magnificent strawberry shortcake. It is rare for people to do things successfully at the very first time because they don’t have any experience before. There is an old saying”Difficult the first time, easy the second time” With more and more practice, people become more and more familiar with the materials, processes, or the skills, which later gets the work done more effectively. Practice is the best strategy to make people do things better and better. People might be talented, but without practice people would achieve nothing.
The story Cook-a-Doodle-Doo is a very funny story bringing the reader laughter. The author makes use of animal characters to express three main ideas: teamwork, learning from the mistakes, and practice makes perfect. Working in a team is better than working by oneself because everyone could share their strengths to make up for others' weaknesses, and gets work done easily with less time. During the working process, it is unavoidable that people might make some mistakes. But it is okay! From the interactions with other team members, people get to know what parts they did wrong and how they could improve. People learn from their mistakes. Next, just keep practicing because practice makes perfect. The more people practice, the better the work would be. I recommend this book to students who are sad or angry when making mistakes. I hope they can learn from Iguana to learn from mistakes.
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