Gingerbread Christmas (Gingerbread Baby #3)

Brett celebrates the holidays with the cheery hero of Gingerbread Baby and Gingerbread Friends and his friend Matti, who once again bails out his confectionary pal. When Gingerbread Baby hears about the Christmas Festival, he announces that he will sing with his Gingerbread Band (which doesn't exist), so Matti bakes up a batch of gingerbread instruments. Their performance is a hit, until a girl identifies them as cookies, and Matti quickly camouflages them with snow to prevent the audience from devouring them. Gingerbread Baby taunts the crowd to chase him, and the clever hiding spot he finds, revealed in a festive Christmas tree pop-up, lets readers do a little seek-and-find of their own. In her signature style, Brett frames her pages with intricate themed borders that supplement or foreshadow the story's action; featuring candies, gingerbread, and ornate loops of icing, they look good enough to eat. Ages 3-5. (Oct.)

PreS-Gr 2--In this third book about Gingerbread Baby, the cookie takes part in the town's Christmas Festival. Matti bakes a batch of gingerbread instruments, and Gingerbread Baby takes the stage with his band. All is well until a little girl realizes that these instruments are edible. Matti disguises the instruments, and Gingerbread Baby hides in the foldout Christmas tree. VERDICT Brett's signature border designs and detailed scenes of a folkloric Swiss village make this more suitable for sharing at home than at storytime venues with larger audiences.--Virginia Walter, UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies