Gingerbread Baby

Rating:
Summary: beautiful book!!
Review: Fantastic! Jan Brett's illustrations are wonderful and really hold the children's attention. She also gives a new twist on the ending which the children loved. It will definitely be part of my December curriculum from now on!

Rating:
Summary: Gingerbread Baby
Review: I really enjoyed this story. It was neat how it was a gingerbread baby instead of the gingerbread man. This little boy named Matti is making a gingerbread man with his mom. The instructions say not to peak into the oven while it is cooking. Matti starts getting excited and he looks into the oven only halfway through its cooking. A little gingerbread baby pops out and says, "I am the Gingerbread Baby, Fresh from the pan. If you want me, Catch me if you can." After that it runs around the whole village saying that phrase and running away from everyone and everything that tries to catch it. It is running free until Matti makes a gingerbread house for it to live in. I think this story would be very easily likable for children to listen to and read.

Rating:
Summary: Librarian and Teacher!
Review: I teach in an elementary school of over 800 students. Each year I present a unit on Jan Brett. I introduce her as my personal favorite author/illustrator. I teach this unit before our Christmas holiday and use a variety of her books. I found the use of the plush Gingerbread Baby an extra in my teaching unit. The children immediately recognize the character and it makes the experience that much more meaningful. I am SO glad I have the plush as part of my teaching unit. Many of my students have mentioned that they have purchased their own Gingerbread Baby!

Rating:
Summary: Thanks, Jan Brett!
Review: I work as a teachers' assistant with kindergartners. Jan Brett's books have long been favorites of mine. She may have outdone herself on this one! There's always the exquisite artwork, the detailed borders that foreshadow the story, and the kind and gentle retelling of tales that are classics. This is the story of the gingerbread boy, the same story we grew up with, with a delightful ending. The Gingerbread Baby does not get eaten this time. How this comes about just really captures the children's imagination-they cheer, clap, and smile from ear to ear. We read all the versions of The Gingerbread Boy that our school library has, and the kids vote on their favorite version. Every year, The Gingerbread Baby wins, by huge amounts. That's all you need to know, really, about this book. Five, six and seven year-olds just LOVE it. And the adult reading it will enjoy the story and marvel at the beautiful art work, which Jan Brett does herself. Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett
Review: Jan Brett has done it again with her latest book. Her detailed, distinctive style is immediately recognizable to those who admire her work. The Gingerbread Baby is a new twist on an old tale. The naughty baby runs away with a host of people and animals chasing him. The pattern of the story makes it a joy for children to read and act out. Jan adds her own special ending which will be a delight to children and adults alike.

Rating:
Summary: it is in the details
Review: Jan Brett's illustrations are so beautifully detailed and intricate that it is a pleasure to read this book to my child. My toddler loves looking for the little gingerbread baby on each page and Brett's use of color really captures his attention. The gingerbread house flap at the end of the book is fun for kids to pull back. This would be a great book to give as a gift.

Rating:
Summary: Half-baked, or half more fun?
Review: The Gingerbread Man never grows, or bakes, up in this rendition thanks to an impatient little boy. The illustration of the gingerbread baby tying the two girls braids together is rather comical.

The gingerbread being isn't eaten by anything this time, but takes up residence in a gingerbread house in the boy's yard. This end is odder than the logical original one where the gingerbread man is eaten. Is it the case that a cookie being eaten by a fox is now considered too grotesque?;) Maybe instead of playhouses, kids will be asking for cookie houses for their pet cookies from now on.

Rating:
Summary: beautiful book!!
Review: The story is a fantistic twist on the Gingerbread boy tale of old. I agree with all the othe posts. I want only to add, that I found Jan Brett's web page (www.janbrett.com), and she has made a Gingerbread Baby board game, character masks, and Gingerbread Baby recipes that are all free and can be printed up off the website to be used as additional activities with this story.

Rating:
Summary: Run run as fast as you can
Review: There's one thing to definitely be said about Jan Brett. She knows what she's good at and she doesn't stray from her particular brand of storytelling. If you've ever read a Jan Brett story then you're already familiar with her style. Each tale usually exists in a snow covered land, where vaguely European peasant-like people go about their daily lives. You're not going to read a Jan Brett that's set in the grimy suburbs of southern Philadelphia or the desert-like atmosphere of Bahrain. And that's fine. Here, with "The Gingerbread Baby", Brett has taken a classic fairy tale and given it a twist of an ending. The result is an effective retelling that should please even the most die-hard traditionalists.

First of all, the book explains EXACTLY why the Gingerbread Baby appears in the first place. In the original tale, a woman cooking the gingerbread merely opens the oven door and out pops the cocky cookie. In this story, however, a boy (Matti) and his mother are following the recipe found in a worn-looking cookbook. Though the recipe instructs to bake a gingerbread boy for a full eight minutes, "No more. No less. DO NOT peek", Matti cannot resist taking just a little glance at the yummy pastry man. Too late he realizes his mistake and the Gingerbread Baby (it's still too young to be a gingerbread boy, you see) leaps out to its freedom. The next few pages show the various modes of escape the creature uses to keep from being eaten by everyone from Matti's parents to dogs, goats, pigs, peasants, and a crafty fox. In the traditional story, the fox is the clever party that devours the Gingerbread Boy. Not so here. In an interesting twist, Matti bakes a gingerbread house for the naughty baby, and rescues his creation from the villagers by simply luring the Gingerbread creature into its home. The final panel shows the delighted Gingerbread Baby dancing about its little home safe and sound while Matti looks on.

Personally, I was rooting for the fox. But this ending will certainly please any parent who's child has seen "Shrek" fifty plus times over and cannot contemplate such a dire fate for the partying pastry. So while I feel the original tale had more kick and verve, I don't have any serious problems with this tale. Brett gives the Gingerbread Baby enough of a sense of humor to tie the braids of his female pursuers together as well as leaping onto an ice floe when danger comes ever nearer. Brett's illustrations are the real stars of the show, however. Very very few illustrators pay half as much detail to their entire books as Brett does to a single square inch of any page. Her pictures are as adept at displaying blue porcelain mixing bowls and copper pans and teapots as they are at flesh tones, fur, and wicker. When you see a person with braids you can almost count the hairs on their head, they're so individualized. Brett also excels at knitted objects. This is an illustrator who understands the nature of knitting. You can actually count the stitches on Matti's red sweater in this book. And look at the minute details in the clothing each character wears. Or the intricate scrollwork of their furniture. Or the different borders surrounding every page, or the tiles, or the oven, or.... It just goes on and on. There's no other illustrator like her. If you've a penchant for the kinds of kids books you can read over and over to the little ones that contains tiny details in every crack and corner, this is the book for you.

Rating:
Summary: Run run as fast as you can
Review: There's one thing to definitely be said about Jan Brett. She knows what she's good at and she doesn't stray from her particular brand of storytelling. If you've ever read a Jan Brett story then you're already familiar with her style. Each tale usually exists in a snow covered land, where vaguely European peasant-like people go about their daily lives. You're not going to read a Jan Brett that's set in the grimy suburbs of southern Philadelphia or the desert-like atmosphere of Bahrain. And that's fine. Here, with "The Gingerbread Baby", Brett has taken a classic fairy tale and given it a twist of an ending. The result is an effective retelling that should please even the most die-hard traditionalists.

First of all, the book explains EXACTLY why the Gingerbread Baby appears in the first place. In the original tale, a woman cooking the gingerbread merely opens the oven door and out pops the cocky cookie. In this story, however, a boy (Matti) and his mother are following the recipe found in a worn-looking cookbook. Though the recipe instructs to bake a gingerbread boy for a full eight minutes, "No more. No less. DO NOT peek", Matti cannot resist taking just a little glance at the yummy pastry man. Too late he realizes his mistake and the Gingerbread Baby (it's still too young to be a gingerbread boy, you see) leaps out to its freedom. The next few pages show the various modes of escape the creature uses to keep from being eaten by everyone from Matti's parents to dogs, goats, pigs, peasants, and a crafty fox. In the traditional story, the fox is the clever party that devours the Gingerbread Boy. Not so here. In an interesting twist, Matti bakes a gingerbread house for the naughty baby, and rescues his creation from the villagers by simply luring the Gingerbread creature into its home. The final panel shows the delighted Gingerbread Baby dancing about its little home safe and sound while Matti looks on.

Personally, I was rooting for the fox. But this ending will certainly please any parent who's child has seen "Shrek" fifty plus times over and cannot contemplate such a dire fate for the partying pastry. So while I feel the original tale had more kick and verve, I don't have any serious problems with this tale. Brett gives the Gingerbread Baby enough of a sense of humor to tie the braids of his female pursuers together as well as leaping onto an ice floe when danger comes ever nearer. Brett's illustrations are the real stars of the show, however. Very very few illustrators pay half as much detail to their entire books as Brett does to a single square inch of any page. Her pictures are as adept at displaying blue porcelain mixing bowls and copper pans and teapots as they are at flesh tones, fur, and wicker. When you see a person with braids you can almost count the hairs on their head, they're so individualized. Brett also excels at knitted objects. This is an illustrator who understands the nature of knitting. You can actually count the stitches on Matti's red sweater in this book. And look at the minute details in the clothing each character wears. Or the intricate scrollwork of their furniture. Or the different borders surrounding every page, or the tiles, or the oven, or.... It just goes on and on. There's no other illustrator like her. If you've a penchant for the kinds of kids books you can read over and over to the little ones that contains tiny details in every crack and corner, this is the book for you.