The Gingerbread Monster

Kid mad scientist Frank N. Stine craves a gingerbread person, but he’s all out of mix. Improvising with unlikely ingredients that range from matzo balls to “old croissants gathering dust,” he creates the eponymous confection—a hot mess of a cookie with a life of its own. The story’s chase narrative inverts the classic nursery rhyme as Frankenbread pursues its creator, snarling variations on “Frrr Frrr Frrruh!” while Frank warns everyone, “Run, run, run, if you want to survive, this horrible Frankenbread Monster’s alive!” But when Frank realizes that all the monster really wants is a friend, he saves the confection from a mob of villagers, and the duo become not only BFFs but lab partners, too—an arrangement that’s anything but half-baked. Gemeinhart’s rhyming text finds its monstrous match in Cuellar’s electric-hued digital illustrations, which channel classic monster movie vibes alongside a gleeful, fluorescent grotesqueness that’s reminiscent of the Garbage Pail Kids. The human protagonist is depicted with pale skin; background characters are portrayed with various skin tones. A recipe concludes. Ages 4–7. (July)