Gingerbread Baby By: Jan Brett

Book Genre: This book has been labeled with a combination of three genres.
(Fable, Folk Tale and Myth)

Publishing Info: Scholastic Incorporated (32 pages)

Awards or honors received: None

Summary: The story begins with Matti and his mother wanting to make gingerbread. The directions called to bake for 8 full minutes. Matti couldn't wait any longer and opened the oven door and out jumped a gingerbread baby. Matti’s parents went on a wild chase to catch the gingerbread baby. As the story continues they accumulate a large variety of animals and village people also trying the catch him. Meanwhile Matti is at home mixing and stirring another gingerbread recipe. He’s going to try to catch the gingerbread baby himself. As the cat, barking dog, goats, Martha and Madeline, pig, villagers, the fox and the milk and cheese man ran after him the gingerbread man saw a gingerbread house right in the middle of a clearing. The gingerbread baby was very excited! As everybody made their way to the gingerbread house all that was left were crumbs. They started back home to tell Matti the sad news that something had gotten the gingerbread baby before they could. As they entered the house his parents saw that he had been busy making a gingerbread house while they were gone. Only Matti could hear the tiny voice from inside the gingerbread house. He had done it, he caught the gingerbread man!

Personal rating and reason for rating: ****Great! Jan Brett wrote several different gingerbread man books which the children absolutely love hearing. This was the last book written by her that I haven’t read and like all the others I was very pleased! I really like how Jan Brett made the gingerbread boy come out of the oven as a gingerbread baby since it didn’t get to bake all the way! (Very clever) The illustrations are very kid friendly while at the same time providing some suspense during the reading. I really liked how on the side of the pictures it showed what Matti was doing at home while everyone was chasing after the gingerbread man. Students could make predictions what Matti was trying to do. I really enjoyed reading this book and I know my children will also!

Reading level: 2.6 (Accelerated Reader) 2nd grade 6th month

Interest level: K-3

Possible uses of the text in integrated units of study:

Reading/Writing: Students will create a double bubble map to compare and contrast the original Gingerbread Man to the Gingerbread Baby. I will model how to do this on the board and then students would be asked to go back to their seats and copy it from the board. (This would be very hard to do early in the year)

Writing: Students would have to use their imagination and come up with their own way to catch the gingerbread baby. They would have to illustrate it and write 1-2 sentences explaining how.

Math: I would bring in all the ingredients to make a gingerbread man cookie. (Wal-Mart sells the giant gingerbread man cookie molds) I would then copy the recipe onto a large poster board where each student can see. Complete one ingredient at a time and mix in front of students. I am fortunate enough to have use of an oven at my school. Place the gingerbread man in the oven and put tape around the handle to make sure the gingerbread man doesn’t get out! Right before it was time I would have my assistant take out the gingerbread cookie and hide it making sure she left a note behind near the oven. The note would send my students on a chase around the school looking for the gingerbread man. Finally the last clue would have the cookie there for the children to eat!

Memory Game: Find pictures of the characters from the story online and make a set of each character. Paste them on card stock and have them laminated. Students could play a game of memory using the characters from the story. I would only use five characters because that would be ten cards and anymore than that is too much for kindergarten.

Potential problems or difficulties: I do not see any potential problems.