Friday, December 9, 2016

Cookies!! - Books of December

I wanted to feature books on gingerbread.  The multitude of gingerbread man, baby, girl, woman, twins, doll, bear, dog, computer mouse (joke) books out there have raised my blood sugar to dangerous levels.


Cookies are less sweet but there are some winners available - and most of them are holiday free!  Read them now.  Read them months from now.  Still tasty.

The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? by Mo Willems.  The cheek of that little duckling!  He asked for a cookie - politely - and he got one.  The Pigeon wants a cookie.  Does anyone ever give HIM a cookie?  Another delightful meltdown by the world's favorite pigeon!  And cookies.   And a very cute Duckling.  (And too many sentence fragments.)

Cookies : Bite-size Life Lessons by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by Jane Dyer.  Oooooh, Jane Dyer artwork.  Now that IS sweet!  Rosenthal uses the process of baking and eating cookies to introduce concepts such as the difference between "fair" and "unfair" or what it means to cooperate.  And the pictures?  Well, they are by Jane Dyer.
Read Christmas Cookies : Bite-size Holiday Lessons by the same team to feel all warm and yule-tide cozy.

Gingerbread bunnies, gingerbread husbands, gingerbread hearts, wives, foxes, ponies, dreams, AAAHHH!!!
Still...

The Gingerbread Boy by Paul Galdone.  This is the version I grew up with.  The text is straight forward and the illustrations are bright and snappy.

The following book is for teenagers.   

Gingerbread by Rachel Cohn.  Cyd Charisse - no, not the long-legged actor from the '50s - is a young teen with a lot of attitude.  She's been thrown out of school - again.  Her mother and stepfather are fed up.  So across the country to NYC, Cyd goes, to meet her biological dad and her half-siblings and, hopefully, get straightened out.  There are not many cookies in this book.  There is a lot of smart-a** dialogue and convoluted thinking.  Cyd makes some blunders but the reader cheers her on.  There might be some dated phrases here (c2004). 
BTW, Gingerbread is her rag doll, her talisman and best friend.  I relate.  I still have my kid-hood best friend.  (In the attic.)

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