Cookie With A Clue! The Gingerbread Man Loose at the Zoo by Laura Murray

I’ll be a detective. I know that I can!
I’ll solve all these clues. I’m the Gingerbread Man!

That cocky cookie is back again, this time on field trip with "his" class to the city zoo!

Teacher has prepped the kids with plenty of wild animal lore and has a fun scavenger hunt for the class to sleuth out each creature with the help of her clues.

It's a zippity zoo day!

But Gingerbread Man is born to run! He zips off on his own to try his hand at solving all the riddles. Unfortunately, he soon learns that being a tasty cookie amid wild animals means he has to be a smart cookie. Giraffe sees Gingerbread Man as nothing more than a sweet treat.

I jumped on the rail to get a good look.

And out popped her tongue like a curvy blue hook!

That was a close one! Gingerbread Man wriggles and twists out of a tight situation by tickling Giraffe's tender nose into an abrupt sneeze that sends Gingerbread Man sailing to safety.

But does Gingerbread Man stay with the group? Of course not. Running wild is his style. But by now he's a wiser wanderer, staying out of reach of the zebra, rhino, elephant, and even the naked mole rat. He even manages to resist a sweet-talking fox this time around, too, until he's down to his last critter riddle, when he meets up with a little lost Joey Roo, looking for his mother's warm pouch.

I'll help you get back.

I'm kind of lost, too!

But I'm on the right track.

And with just the right clue, Gingerbread Man comes through, in Laura Murray's latest in series, The Gingerbread Man Loose at The Zoo (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2016). With Murray's rollicking rhythms and cantering couplets, kids get a well-versed educational tour of the zoo and its denizens with their favorite jolly gingerbread man. Mike Lowery's faux naif illustrations move the story along speedily with each page turn, and all ends well, with everyone luckily accounted for in time to load on the big yellow bus. "Zingy rhymes and cartooning make this a high-stakes, high-energy readaloud," reports Publishers Weekly.

Murray's Gingerbread Man series is perfect for preschool and primary school students, each one focused on learning about some aspect of community life. Other books in this series include The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School, The Gingerbread Man Loose on the Fire Truck, and, of course, The Gingerbread Man Loose at Christmas. (See reviews here.)

CAUTION: GINGERBREAD MAN X-ING!! The Gingerbread Man Loose at Christmas by Laura Murray

ONE WHITE SNOWY MORNING, I POPPED FROM MY BED.
"WAKE UP, SLEEPYHEAD!" I SAID.

THE CLASSROOM WAS DECORATED IN COLORED LIGHTS,
TWINKLING IN REDS, GREENS, AND WHITES.

The fall semester is swinging into winter. The class has completed their study of Community Helpers, and Teacher has an idea that will morph that unit right into the holiday season.

"IT'S THE SEASON FOR GIVING
AND WE CAN GIVE, TOO.

OUR GIFTS SHOULD BE SOMETHING
WE MAKE, SAY, OR DO!"

The teacher has the kids busy making seasons greeting cards or treats for those community helpers--the police lady, the librarian, the garbage collector, and the rest--who they have visited with or who have visited them in their classroom, and then they'll take a walking field trip downtown to see the town decorations and deliver their cards in person. What festive fun!

The Gingerbread Man makes his own special card for the baker who baked him, but he gets separated from the group as they hike toward town. But after all, he's the Gingerbread Man, and gingerbread men are especially good at running--running away, in his case. A slushy snow is falling, and he knows the damp is a danger to crispy cookies, but still, he IS a mighty Gingerbread Man.

“I’LL HOBBLE RIGHT OVER, AS FAST AS I CAN.

Gingerbread Man is one tough cookie, but as he trudges through the wet snow, he notices that his feet are getting seriously soggy. But at last he spies the sign he's seeking: BAKE SHOP.

And when he slogs inside the shop, the baker notices his problem immediately and has a quick fix for crumbling feet. It so happens the baker has a pot of melted chocolate all ready to decorate some goodies, so like the helper he is, he dunks the Gingerbread Man's tootsies in a quick dark chocolate dip for his trip, giving him galoshes that definitely won't melt on the way back to school.

"THAT'LL KEEP YOUR FEET COZY AND LOOK REALLY COOL!"

Laura Murray's third story of the Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Man Loose at Christmas (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2015) has the class mascot getting into his usual runaway scene, all set in jolly rhyming couplets with speech balloons to boot, while artist Mike Lowery sets off the story in comic book-style panels, all bright with the symbols of the season-- tinsel-wrapped trees, candy cane stripes, and Santa Claus caps--and concluding with a special card for their teacher:

"NOW THAT WE KNOW THAT WE'RE SMART COOKIES, TOO,
WE MADE YOU A SUPER GIGANTIC "THANK YOU!"

"...The smart cookies who appreciated the character's previous adventures will eat this one up," says School Library Journal.

Other stories is this series are the classic first-day-of-school story, The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School (see my 201l review here) and the field trip tale, The Gingerbread Man Loose on the Fire Truck.

Can't Catch Me? Catch That Cookie! by Hallie Durand

IT WAS DECEMBER AND MARSHALL'S CLASS HAD HEARD STORIES ABOUT RUNAWAY GINGERBREAD MEN ALL WEEK LONG.

MARSHALL DIDN'T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT.

Marshall is one of those kids for whom the literary conceit of "a willing suspension of disbelief" is not an option.

Still, he buys into the idea of eating tasty gingerbread men, so he pitches in to mix the molasses into the stiff dough, wielding a mean mixing spoon. His teacher, Mrs. Gray, shows the class how to roll the dough out and use the cookie cutters to cut out the little guys, and then she lets each student design his own. Marshall gives his cookie a martial belt with silver balls, and since he really likes them, he give his man six raisin eyes. Finally, the gingerbread men go onto the cookie sheets and into the oven.

But when the class comes back and opens the oven...

THERE WAS NOTHING INSIDE!

"THEY RAN AWAY!" EVERYBODY YELLED!

MARSHALL DIDN'T BUY IT. "THEY CAN'T RUN!" HE REMARKS.

Marshall is skeptical, but he goes along with the group and they find a note pinned to a door. Mrs. Gray seems just a little too excited as she reads the rhyming clue to the class. "Candy" leads them to "sandy," which their sand table definitely is, where they find another clue, and then another as they make their way down the hall toward the gym. On the way Marshall spots a clue of his own--an oven-crispy raisin.

Now Marshal begins to doubt his own doubt.

And then the clues lead them to the gymnasium, where Marshall discovers indisputable proof, a silver dragee from his gingerbread man's belt. And in the middle of the floor, there are tiny tracks, like those a gingerbread man might make, if a gingerbread man could make tracks!

Okay. Marshall decides just to get his head inside the game. If gingerbread men could get tired of running away, what would they do next?

"THOSE GUYS PLAYED HARD," MARSHALL THOUGHT.

"THEY'RE TAKING A NAP!"

And if they did, Marshall knows exactly where to find them, in Hallie Durand's brand-new Catch That Cookie! (Dial Press, 2014). Given that tracking down those runaway gingerbread men is a popular ploy for taking preschool kids on a tour of their new school, Durand's book is likely to get around schools as fast as her cookie dudes do. Caldecott-winning artist David Small provides the quirky details of the chase, with his dubious, red-headed and stubborn Marshall finally playing along with the pursuit for the fun of it--that is, until the cookies are discovered and come to their, ahem, usual conclusion, true to their folk tale tradition:

Now, what does the fox say? Oh, yeah!

Snip! Snap! Snout!
My tale's told out.