Carol Moore

I have mixed feelings about this book. The plot is suspenseful, since the gingerbread man was about to be eaten by a fox but got saved by a butterfly at the last second. Children also tend to like stories where there are both nice and evil animal characters. The main theme of this story is friendship. The gingerbread and the butterfly were friends throughout the book, while the other characters came and went. The butterfly saved the gingerbread man, demonstrating that she was a loyal and trusting friend, which are the important friends to keep and care about.
This is an ebook, so the book is ten pages long on a website with a picture on each page. The illustrations clearly represented what was happening in the story. For example, one of the gingerbread men that were baked was half the size of the others because the baker ran out of dough. This is represented in the picture by showing eight full sized gingerbread men on a cookie sheet and one that was very small in comparison. However, the images are not large enough and there is too much text on each page. Young children would easily lose interest in this story because they have to scroll through several paragraphs before seeing the picture on every page. I thought there would be more of an emphasis on human characters such as the baker, which would have added more cultural value to this story. Many children who celebrate Christmas know the feeling of making gingerbread men and seeing beautiful gingerbread houses, but there is no mention of any other Christian traditions in the story. However, all students can feel included and engaged in this story since it does not explicitly connect gingerbread men to Christianity. The story does not encourage students to view any topics from a new perspective or think critically, but it is a good read for younger children who want to read a short,cute, and interesting story.… (más)

This story struck a chord with me because of the excellent message that it teaches children. It is not uncommon for children to refuse to do homework assignments, regardless of how important the work is to their learning and mastery of the content. The message of this story is that there is no easy way out of doing homework, chores, and other daily responsibilities, and that cheaters never prosper. Throughout the story, Patrick learned that fact and began to accept his responsibilities, and that what is right isn’t always easy and what is easy isn’t always right.… (más)

This story illustrates the fact that when the normal balance of life and our environment is altered, we tend to gravitate towards the things that are normal in order to retain as much of that balance as we can. When the world changes color, the citizens gravitate towards the blue jay, which stays the same color regardless of the rest of the world. That lesson can be applied to any number of things in a child’s life, and it teaches children to look for the positive things in an otherwise negative situation.… (más)