The Eighteen Story Gingerbread House book is an eclectic collection of eighteen unique stories that can be enjoyed by children and adults alike. Four of the stories involve magic. They are “The Green Genie,” “The Magic Seeds,” “Merlin’s Ring” and “The Time Door.”Other stories in the work utilize the literary personification technique where animals are given human qualities. These tales are “The Tadpole and the Caterpillar,” “Percy Helps Sparky,” “The Story of Bruin,” “The Wise Old Owl,” “From Fang to Claw,” “The Ants and the Bees,” “The Shrimp and the Lizard,” “The Ram, the Goat and the Deer” and “The Lucky Birds.”Three of the tales in The Eighteen Story Gingerbread House have animals interacting with humans. These stories are “Pedro’s Wonderful Donkey,” “Mrs. Purdy’s Parrot,” and a new Christmas time presentation titled “Santa’s Little Buck.”Finally, two stories have humans as the principal characters. “Lu Vang” is a biography on a Laotian-American immigrant becoming a crewleader on a New Jersey blueberry farm, and “Kandu’s Great Discovery” shows the daily life and hazards experienced by a ten-year-old prehistoric Cro-Magnon boy.
