Yee-haw!! I am excited to review the book: The Gingerbread Cowboy, by Janet Squires as part of the “The Gingerbread Man” Around the World Series for Kid World Citizen, during the World Folktales and Fables Week which is this week! I’ll also be joining other mom bloggers with tales of different runaway stories from around the world.
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The gingerbread man in this story is actually a western cowboy; and it is set in the wild, wild, west. The story starts off with a very frisky gingerbread cowboy who escapes from the rancher’s oven. As he tries to escape, he outwits most of the animals, the rancher & his wife, and the cowboys in the desert; and in the true spirit of a cowboy he is chanting, ♫♫ “Giddyup, giddyup as fast as you can. You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man”♫♫ as he’s running away!
However, in the end he can’t run as fast as he can, and well you can guess what happened to the gingerbread cowboy. I have to say my 4 yr. old wasn’t happy! He enjoyed the book until the end, so to cheer him up we made gingerbread cowboys! Yee-haw!
Unfortunately, I’m not a baker so I used a Betty Crocker ready to use gingerbread mix. Little one and I used the gingerbread man cookie cutter to make the gingerbread cowboy, except that I added a hat to it. Not bad, huh? 🙂
He also wanted to make the animals from the book, but I didn’t have any coyote, or lizard cookie cutters. Do they exist? 🙂 So we settled for elephant, crocodile, dolphin, and rhinoceros. I decorated 2 of gingerbread cowboy, and little one did the rest. Can you tell? 🙂
As I previously mentioned little one wasn’t very thrilled with the ending, but funny enough when we were making the animal gingerbread cookie he say’s “We can have the rhinoceros eat the gingerbread cowboy!” Really?
What I enjoy about this story is that it doesn’t stray away from the original concept. The book also has beautiful illustrations of the animals, and the desert all in warm earth tone colors. My favorite part of the story is the very catchy chant: ♫♫ “Giddyup, giddyup as fast as you can. You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man”♫♫ that my son was chanting as we made the gingerbread cowboys.
What’s your favorite runaway version? Don’t know of any, except for the gingerbread man? In the meantime, check these out from Mud Hut Mama’s: The Runaway Dinner, Little Artists’: Russian Runaway Gingerbread: Kolobok, All Done Monkey’s: The Runaway Radish , and The Piri-piri Lexicon’s: Roule Galette: a French version of the Gingerbread Man story.
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I love this! I had never heard of this version- and I am in Texas, so I need to read a copy to my kids! I especially love your gingerbread men with the little cowboy hats on them!!!:) So cute- my kids would love this.
My daughter was sitting on my lap as I was reading this and boy did her eyes light up when she saw your gingerbread cookies. She said, "let's make them right now!" Now if only I had that Betty Crocker mix! Thanks so much for the shout out! It looks like you had tons of fun with this book and I think it is so sweet that your little one didn't like the ending.
Thank you! It's a fun book, and my son had fun making the gingerbread cowboys!
Hahahahaha I'm so sorry you don't have the Betty Crocker mix, but you can always google a recipe for the cookies. 🙂 I know he was bummed about the ending poor baby!
I love them!! All the gingerbread books out there now are so fun!! Thanks for sharing at the cookie swap!!