Category Archives: Food, Drink, and Diet

Run, Run, Run as Fast as You Can! Gotta Get Away from the Gingerbread Man…

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When I was fooling around with the idea of a Christmassy post about gingerbread, I was expecting to include “The Gingerbread Man,” the American version of the tale type about some kind of food (usually a pancake) that runs away from the people who made it for their meal, then a whole succession of other hungry creatures, only to be outsmarted by a fox   The most interesting stories I found featuring gingerbread men weren’t cut out with the same cutter, so I decided to let them out of the cookie jar after the holiday season had come and gone.  And for good reason…

Oh no, it’s Mr. Bill’s cousins!

In Northern Europe, molds and cutters for gingerbread cookies are available in more  sizes and shapes than the all-American little man with short chubby arms and legs.  Some of the gingerbread cookies that turn up in Scandinavian children’s books like Ottilia Adelborg’s Bilderbok (Stockholm: Albert Bonnier, 1907) are the stuff out of bad dreams, not visions of sugar plums.  The illustration below shows a brother and sister dreaming of a gingerbread troll after helping their mother with the Christmas baking.

The Brown Book or The Story of the Gingerbread Man illustrated by Florence Hardy (London: Henry Frowde and Hodder & Stoughton, 1909) looked perfectly innocent on the outside.  Little Timothy Brown so lusts for the gingerbread man in the village shop, that he asks the proprietress if he can have it and pay in three weekly installments.  When she refuses the offer, he goes home and throws a tantrum.  Suddenly a giant gingerbread man appears and says, “As you want me so much, you see I’ve come…But as you can’t pay in pence, you must pay me some other way.”  He marches the boy home, where he is forced to do hard labor, along with a band of forest creatures.  One night when his oppressor is fast asleep, the boy escapes from bondage, just ahead of the Gingerbread Man’s bullets.   But it’s all a bad dream and Timothy is presented with the coveted gingerbread man by his mother.  Wonder why he eats it immediately…

The Royal Baking Powder advertising brochure, The Little Gingerbread Man (1923), takes place in the kingdom of Jalapomp where there’s nothin’ lovin’ is comin’ from the oven, the royal cook being so incompetent that the king has banished all baking, including birthday cakes.  Informed of this draconian measure by the Flour Fairy, the Queen of neighboring Cooky Land calls for volunteers to airlift light, fresh, hot cakes and buns made properly with Royal Baking Powder to Jalapomp.  The smells alone are enough  to convince the king to restore the delights of baked goods to him and his subjects.  The motley posse of volunteers–a sugar cookie, buckwheat cake, doughnut, and muffin–led by Johnny Gingerbread do not look especially toothsome.   The simplest explanation for the heroes’ unappetizing appearance is that the artist Charles J. Coll could draw fairies, but not sweets.  Would a child see  every cookie on the dessert plate with hideous wrinkles and staring eyes?

But the piece de resistance is John Dough and the Cherub (1906).   M. Jules Grogrande, the French baker, goes into the shop at 3 am to make a nattily dressed gingerbread man as big as a fourteen-year-old boy to put in the window in honor of the 4th of July holiday.  He accidentally mixes diluted Elixir of Life, which his wife left in a bowl on the counter, into the dough.  I think you can figure out what happened next…

Gary Trousdale and the team responsible for Scared Shrekless, eat your hearts out. You thought you were the first to retell Frankenstein with gingerbread people?  L. Frank Baum, creator of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and its Royal Illustrator John R. Neill, beat you to it in John Dough…

Gingy examining the freshly baked Sugar from “The Bride of Gingy” section of Scared Shrekless.

 

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, Some True Loves Gave to Cotsen…

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SIX WILD THINGS!!!

Maurice Sendak, “Before You Jump Online,” a study for print advertisement for Bell Atlantic’s campaign “Wild Things are Happening” (1998). Gift of Dennis M. V. David.

Maurice Sendak, “Stretching the Dollar,” study for American Express’s campaign, “Extended Warranty” 1988.. Gift of Dennis M. V. David.

 

FIVE BOOKS ON BAKING

FOUR LOVELY DRAWINGS

Border, headpiece, and two letters for an alphabet by Elise von Holtorp. Gift of Andrea Stillman.

A preparatory drawing by Richard (Dicky) Doyle. Gift of Andrea Stillman.

                                                                                 

THREE COUNTING BOOKS

TWO BANNED BOOKS

 

AND A PICTURE BOOK ON HANUKKAH…

One of a group of picture books on Hanukkah from an anonymous donor in honor of Lloyd E. Cotsen and Margit Cotsen.

With heartfelt thanks to our generous donors who surprised us in December 2016!

*****

6. The Wild Things: Gift of  Dennis M. V. David. Five preparatory drawings by Maurice Sendak for “Wild Things Are Happening,” the Bell Atlantic advertising campaign for Bell Atlantic Net, a state of the art Internet service launched in 1998.

5. The books on baking: five picture books about birthday cakes from an anonymous donor who bakes.  Sue Aldridge, Children’s Party Cakes (London: New Holland, 1998); Debbie Brown, Enchanted Cakes for Children (London: Merehurst, c2000); Alexander McCall Smith, The Great Cake Mystery.  Illustrated by Iain McIntosh (New York: Anchor, c2012); Helen Oxenbury, It’s My Birthday (Cambridge: Candlewick, 1994); Rosemary Wells, Bunny Cakes (New York: Scholastic, c1997).

4. The original artwork: four drawings presented to the Cotsen Children’s Library by Andrea Stillman.  Hugh Deane, color drawing of a troll king and his two companions; Richard “Dicky” Doyle, sketch of a girl in crown riding a reindeer; Elise von Holtrop, border design, headpiece and the letters A and B for an unidentified alphabet book (possibly unpublished); D. Viel, pen and ink drawing of a crew of elves chopping down a flower.

3. The counting books: gift of an innumerate anonymous donor.  Jennifer Adams.  Jane Eyre: A Counting Primer.  Illustrated by Alison Oliver.  A Babylit Book.  (Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith, 2012); Barbara Barbieri McGrath.  Skittles Riddles Math.  Illustrated by Roger Glass. (Watertown, MA, Charlesbridge, 2000);  Mark Shulman, I’ll Take a Dozen. A Bagel Book. (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, c2002).

2. The banned books: gift of an anonymous donor from Boston.  Arthur C. Gackley [i.e. Bob Staake].  Bad Little Children’s Books (New York: Abrams Image, 2016); Ranim Ganeshram.  A Birthday Cake for George Washington.  Illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton (New York: Scholastic, 2016).

1 The book on Hanukkah: eleven picture books about Hanukkah in honor of Lloyd E. and Margit Cotsen from an anonymous donor from Los Angeles.  Seymour Chwast, The Miracle of Hanukkah. (Maplewood, NJ: Blue Apple Books, 2005); Woody Guthrie, Honeyky Hanukah.  Pictures by Dave Horowitz. (New York: Doubleday, 2014); Eric A. Kimmel, Simon and the Bear: A Hanukkah Tale.  Illustrated by Matthew Trueman. (Los Angeles: Disney, 2014); Stephen Krensky, Hanukkah at Valley Forge.  Illustrated by Greg Harlin. (New York: Dutton, c2006); Leslea Newman, The Eight Nights of Chanukah.  Illustrated by Elivia Savadier. (New York: Abrams, 2005); Leslea Newman, Runaway Dreidel!  Illustrated by Kyrsten Brooker. (New York: Henry Holt, 2002); Amanda Peet & Andrea Troyer, Dear Santa, Love, Rachel Rosenstein.  Illustrated by Christine Davenier. (New York: Doubleday, 2015); Ronne Randall, The Hanukkah Mice.  Illustrated by Maggie Kneen. (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2008), Richard and Tanya Simon, Oskar and the Eight Blessings.  Illustrated by Mark Siegel. (New York: Roaring Brook, 2015); Elka Weber, The Yankee at Seder.  Illustrated by Adam Gustavson.  (Berkeley: Tricycle Press, 2009); Jane Yolen, How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Chanukah?  Illustrated by Mark Teague. (New York: Blue Sky, 2013).