Variations on Favorite Stories

Norwegian version of The Pancake Boy.

"A freshly bake gingerbread man escapes when he is taken out of the oven and eludes a number of pursuers until he meets a clever fox."

"A freshly baked gingerbread man escapes when he is taken out of the oven and eludes a number of animals until he meets a clever fox."

"A freshly baked gingerbread boy escapes when he is taken out of the oven and eludes his pursuers until he meets a clever fox."

See if you can keep up with the Gingerbread Boy as he outruns a little old woman, a cow, and even a field full of mowers.

From the moment he jumps out of mother mouse's oven, the Gingerbread Man is on the run. He is faster than father mouse, faster than the mouse's children, even faster than the hare. If it weren't for a certain deep river and a crafty old fox, the naughty Gingerbread Man would still be running.

"A freshly baked gingerbread man escapes when he is taken out of the oven and eludes a series of nursery rhyme characters who hope to eat him until meeting up with a clever fox. Includes recipe."

"A Johnny Cake that leaped from the oven and outran in turn the farmer's son, the farmer and his wife, the well-diggers, the ditch-diggers, a bear and a wolf-only to meet disaster with the wily fox."

In this Tex-Mex retelling of The Little Gingerbread Man, Senorita Gordita--a little corn cake-- escapes from the frying pan and leads a merry chase. She runs through the desert boasting, "You'll never catch me!" while fleeing from a spider, a rattler, and other hungry creatures "with a flip, and a skip, and a zip-zoom-zip."

In Texas, Tia Lupe and Tio Jose make the best tortillas -- so light that the cowboys say they just might jump right off the griddle. One day, a tortilla does just that. The tortilla runs through the desert pursued by two horned toads, three donkeys, four jackrabbits, five rattlesnakes, and six buckaroos. She is finally outwitted by Senor Coyote in this Lone Star twist on the classic Gingerbread Man tale.

"Lonely Gingerbread Baby, having set out to find a friend, enters a bakery where he tries to talk to different cookies and other figures, but winds up leading a crowd back to his house on a chase similar to the one in the familiar tale."

"A young boy and his mother bake a gingerbread baby that escapes from their oven and leads a crowd on a chase similar to the one in the familiar tale about a not-so-clever gingerbread man."

"After chasing the special rice cake, Nian Gao, that their mother has made to celebrate the Chinese New Year, three poor brothers share it with an elderly woman and have their generosity richly rewarded"

"Like her older brother, the Gingerbread Boy, who was eventually devoured by a fox, the Gingerbread Girl eludes the many people who would like to eat her but also has a plan to escape her sibling's fate."

"Any child who loves cookies will enjoy this inventive tale of Ginger Bear, a cookie in the shape of a bear, who sets out to avoid being eaten."

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In this twist on The Gingerbread Boy, Cookie teams up with Fox to try to become sweeter and faster, before learning that there is a reason he is different."

"A gingerbread man searches all over the school for the group of children that made him and then left him behind."

"When the Gingerbread Man joins the children who made him on a school field trip to a fire station, he escapes being eaten by Spot the Dalmatian and rides along to a fire."

A retelling of the familiar tale on p. 7

The Gingerbread Man retold as Johnny Cake on p.11

The adventures of various nursery rhyme and fairy tale characters are retold in backward sequence with each tale interrelated to the other. The Gingerbread Boy is the last story in the book.