Gingerbread Baby

by Jan Brett

Overview

Jan Brett's highly original version of the Gingerbread Boy story has quickly become a family classic. Now, the charming tale of Matti's clever trap for the runaway Gingerbread Baby is available as a beautiful board book for younger readers. And it still features a surprise lift-the-flap gingerbread house at the end!

Author Biography:

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399234446
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	10/04/1999
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 11.30(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	AD580L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

With over thirty four million books in print, Jan Brett is one of the nation's foremost author illustrators of children's books. Jan lives in a seacoast town in Massachusetts, close to where she grew up. During the summer her family moves to a home in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts.

As a child, Jan Brett decided to be an illustrator and spent many hours reading and drawing. She says, "I remember the special quiet of rainy days when I felt that I could enter the pages of my beautiful picture books. Now I try to recreate that feeling of believing that the imaginary place I'm drawing really exists. The detail in my work helps to convince me, and I hope others as well, that such places might be real."

As a student at the Boston Museum School, she spent hours in the Museum of Fine Arts. "It was overwhelming to see the room-size landscapes and towering stone sculptures, and then moments later to refocus on delicately embroidered kimonos and ancient porcelain," she says. "I'm delighted and surprised when fragments of these beautiful images come back to me in my painting."

Travel is also a constant inspiration. Together with her husband, Joe Hearne, who is a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Jan visits many different countries where she researches the architecture and costumes that appear in her work. "From cave paintings to Norwegian sleighs, to Japanese gardens, I study the traditions of the many countries I visit and use them as a starting point for my children's books."

Read an Excerpt

Gingerbread Baby

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By JAN BRETT

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

Copyright © 1999

Jan Brett
All right reserved.


ISBN: 0-399-24166-3

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Chapter One

"Can we make a gingerbread?"
Matti asked his mother.
"Yes," she said, and lit the stove.
Matti got down the cookbook.

They mixed the dough, and Matti rolled
it into the shape of a gingerbread boy.
They popped him in the oven.
Tick, tock. Matti peeked. Too soon!
Out jumped a gingerbread baby!

"I am the Gingerbread Baby!
Fresh from the pan.
If you want me,
Catch me if you can!"

The Gingerbread Baby ran
around the kitchen. The door
opened and in came Matti's father.
The Gingerbread Baby ran out,
shouting, "Catch me if you can!"

He ran by the cat. She sprang at him.
They rumbled and tumbled,
but the Gingerbread Baby came out on top.

The dog ran after him. The Gingerbread
Baby climbed over the wall, shouting,
"Catch me if you can!"

Matti stayed at home looking at
the cookbook. He heard his mother
and father yelling, the cat meowing
and the dog barking.

The Gingerbread Baby ran into the barn.
He raced across the goats' backs,
singing loudly, "Catch me if you can!"

The Gingerbread Baby stopped at the well
for a drink. Madeline watched him.
Martha tried to catch him.
But she was too slow.

He grabbed the girls' braids,
tied them together and ran off.

At home, Matti stirred, mixed and rolled
dough. He put it in the oven.
"I will catch him if I can." Matti said to himself.

The Gingerbread Baby jumped into a farm
wagon. A mama pig tried to catch him.
But then he jumped into the air,
twisted around and got away just in time.

"I am the Gingerbread Baby.
I am quick. I am fast.
I am clever. I am smart.
No one can catch me!"

Now the Gingerbread Baby came
to a bridge. All the villagers and
the animals raced after him. So he
jumped off, landed on a chunk of ice
and floated down the river.

"Look at me. And what do you see?
The best Gingerbread Baby ever!"
he sang, and jumped ashore.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Gingerbread Baby
by JAN BRETT
Copyright © 1999 by Jan Brett.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Once again, Brett has given her own special spin to a classic. (Booklist)

Editorial Reviews

Once again, Brett has given her own special spin to a classic. (Booklist)

From the Publisher