Review by Booklist Review
"Horace's mum gives him a lump of dough, and he uses a cookie cutter to make a gingerbread bear, but whenever Horace is about to take a chomp, his mother makes him wait; finally, it's time for bed. As Horace sleeps, the bear wakes up and decides to do some baking. Soon, Ginger Bear has a whole slew of confectionary friends; in fact, a circus ensues with tumblers, trapezists, and strongmen. Bongo the dog ends it all in a double-page-spread massacre with bits and pieces of the cookies here, there, and everywhere. Ginger Bear escapes, however, to a place where a cookie can be safe a window display in a bakery shop. The story in this new offering from the author and illustrator of Traction Man Is Here (2005) is light, but the artwork is strong and inventive, with so much rich detail that readers will hardly know where to look first. Grey, who uses watercolor, acrylics, and collaged photographs for the fantastic mix, notes, No cookies were harmed in the making of the pictures. "--"Cooper, Ilene" Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
As she showed in her soulful The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon, Grey has a knack for reimagining nursery rhymes and other children's classics. This story of an independent-minded cookie alludes to "The Gingerbread Man," noting that "the life of a cookie is usually short and sweet." But fate smiles on Ginger Bear: he escapes being eaten by his baker, Horace, whose Mum interrupts every time he gets ready to take a bite. At bedtime, having missed his chance for a snack, "Horace put the bear in a little tin and put it on his pillow" for later. As sleepy clock faces strike midnight, Ginger Bear comes to life and bakes a crispy batch of bears for company, decorating them in carnival icing and dots. Poised atop a tower of cookbooks, Ginger Bear becomes the ringmaster of a culinary circus. But the festivities end abruptly with the arrival of the family dog who "liked cookies. (But not in a way that is necessarily good for the cookies.)" Grey doesn't sugarcoat her watercolor and mixed-media illustrations: she plays the cookie carnage for laughs, with sole survivor Ginger Bear overlooking a crumb-covered linoleum floor. The mock-pathos implies that cookies are meant to be eaten. No fox can catch this gingerbread man, though, whose recipe for a doughy rumpus calls for a bit of In the Night Kitchen and a dash of Where the Wild Things Are. Young readers should be pleased to discover how Grey allows her edible hero to spend the rest of his days. Ages 5-8. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-This edgy story has some British touches and a slightly arch tone that add a lovely fairy-tale flavor to it. When Horace makes a cookie in the shape of a bear, he can't wait to eat it, but then it is dinner time, then he has brushed his teeth, and there is nothing to do but put his gingerbread bear in a tin for safekeeping on his pillow. When Ginger Bear wakes up, there is no one to play with so he decides to bake himself some friends. He makes enough fabulously iced and decorated cookie bears to have a circus, one so thrilling that no one notices the approach of Bongo the dog. While the cookie carnage that follows might rattle a few tender souls, others will beg for a rereading of the crumbled cookie spread, and all will be satisfied by Ginger Bear's clever and considerably safer new career in a bake-shop display window. Wonderful art that matches the text in its ability to be comfortingly familiar and perverse at the same time pleases with a great many witty details and an appealingly varied layout. The nearly psychedelic illustration of Ginger Bear squeezing pink icing over rapturous cookies as the backdrop shimmers with sprinkles is a treat in itself. This is a tasty choice for fans of Traction Man Is Here! (Knopf, 2005) as well as anyone who's enjoyed the various retellings of "The Gingerbread Boy."-Susan Moorhead, New Rochelle Public Library, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Primary) For young Horace, baking cookies with Mum normally involves him taking the dough -- or the pastry, as it's called in the book's British vernacular -- and playing around with it ""until it was deep gray and fluffy."" Grey's mischievous mixed-media artwork shows snapshots of what this entails, such as Horace plopping dough on his head or molding it around the rim of the toilet. But this time, Mum has cleverly given him his own bear-shaped cookie cutter. The resulting delectable-looking gingerbread bear narrowly escapes a trip down Horace's hatch multiple times, again thanks to Mum. (""'No, Horace,' said Horace's Mum, 'you are just about to have dinner. You will spoil your appetite.'"") Ever attentive to playful illustrative detail, Grey shows Horace sleeping under a quilt patterned with pictures of cookies as Ginger Bear comes to life in the night and decides to ""make"" some friends -- literally. Fresh from the oven, a batch of gingerbread bears performs a circus in the kitchen until the show comes to a grim but hilarious end when Horace's dog, who likes cookies, ""but not in a way that is necessarily good for the cookies,"" interrupts. Luckily, Ginger Bear escapes the massacre and runs away to star in a bakeshop display window. A rambunctious, sometimes gleefully macabre foray into the world of baked goods. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
This sweet little offering blends "The Gingerbread Man" with Where the Wild Things Are to delicious effect. The tale opens with Horace, who makes Ginger Bear and is then cruelly thwarted by his Mum in his attempts to eat his treat. But then the focus shifts to Ginger Bear, who, like Horace, makes some cookies, but wants friends, not food. He bakes a circus full of them, but when Bongo the dog makes short work of the sweets, Ginger Bear realizes he needs to find a place where he can be safe. Grey brings all of her graphic inventiveness to bear on her story, investing Ginger Bear with terrific personality and pathos. By shifting narrative gears from Horace to Ginger Bear, she engineers a radical change in the reader's understanding of the true protagonist of the tale, Ginger Bear's agency initially coming as something of a surprise but then seeming oh-so-right as he, like Max, oversees his rumpus and then seeks safe harbor. Life's not simple for a cookie, but Ginger Bear, unlike his folkloric predecessor, manages quite nicely. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
