GINGER BEAR

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)