THE GINGERBREAD DOLL

When the extended family gathers for its annual cookie baking, great-grandma Rebecca tells about her ninth Christmas, in 1930 during the Depression. Times were hard on their Wisconsin farm, and there was no hope of the porcelain doll she wanted; so Mama improvised a doll of thick gingerbread, with yarn hair and a dress of cloth scraps. Rebecca ``loved Button Marie in a way you could never love anything from a store''; but though she was careful, ``Button Marie'' eventually broke. Later, times got better and she had a cornhusk doll and, finally, the porcelain doll. But it's Button Marie's scrap of a dress that great-grandma Rebecca treasures and talks about on cookie-baking day: she ``was made from love, and that's the part...that lasts forever.'' Lloyd's sharply observed realistic watercolors—in a palette somewhat grayed as if to recall old b&w photos—beautifully reflect this well-told story's warmth and focus on essential values. (Picture book/Young reader. 5-9)