Baumgartner, Barbara (1998). The Gingerbread Man (Norman Messenger, Illustrator). New York: Dorling Kindersley.
The plot and characterization differ from other stories in two ways in this adaptation of the Gingerbread Man. Firstly, there is no grandfather present in the story. Secondly, the author gives onomatopoeic sounds to the animals and the crunching sounds when the fox eats the Gingerbread Man. The author chose to use large and thin typography on almost every page, which lets the reader know that the book is meant for children. The text is also always above or beside the illustrations, never below, which gives the text presidence over the illustrations. The characters that chase after the Gingerbread Man are the grandmother, duck, cow, and horse. The setting of the story is the countryside as evidenced by the grandma’s traditional cottage wear, lush green trees, blue cloudy skies, and grass green rolling hills.
The pattern on the white endpapers are repeated watercolour illustrations of the main character the Gingerbread Man, an off-white rolling pin, and a dark gray tea kettle. The orderliness of the endpapers creates a clean, crisp atmosphere for the picture book. The illustrations are realistic and detailed. For example, readers can see the wheat-like texture of the Gingerbread Man, the folds on the purple raisins and the pinkish-brown swirly design of the candies used to decorate the Gingerbread Man. Readers can also see the softness of the horse’s, cow’s and fox’s fur. When the Gingerbread Man scurries off, the illustrator uses lines of actions to show that he is running. One of the most interesting points about the illustrations is that from the time when the Gingerbread Man runs away from the grandma to when the Gingerbread Man walk to the top of the fox’s head, they are all two-spread illustrations. The left page always depicts the last character that chased after the Gingerbread Man and the page on the right always introduces the new character. Readers are given close-up views of the fox when it munches on the Gingerbread Man. Interestingly, the fox in the story is male.
Gingerbread Stories 