THE GINGERBREAD MAN

``Ha ha ha, hee hee hee, I'm the Gingerbread Man and you can't catch me!'' taunts the fleet-footed cookie. Across the fields he scurries, challenging and outdistancing all comers until he meets his match in the sly old fox and fulfills every good cookie's destiny: to be eaten. This English folktale still has zip, and its lead player is still infuriating, the kind of guy readers are only too delighted to see devoured (or parodied, as a Stinky Cheese Man). This book is a welcome addition to the burgeoning gingerbread shelf, with Rowe's luxurious acrylic illustrations, saturated with great plains of bold color. The Gingerbread Man's targets are appealing characters in settings that often contain an eccentric touch or two: the mice's piebald house, strange trees, skies that look like a plague of locust are passing through. As for the cookie, he's a faceless little cutout who could be genetically related to Gumby, a ridiculous windbag richly deserving of his fate. (Picture book. 3-6)