Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss. ( )

The Gingerbread baby wants to be a part of the Christmas Festival, so he makes gingerbread instruments. All is fine until the children begin to smell gingerbread. The instruments have to hide.....BUT WHERE.

That mischievous Gingerbread Baby, whose story began in the eponymous Gingerbread Baby, and continued in Gingerbread Friends, returns in this third picture-books devoted to his ongoing adventures. Excited at the prospect of the village Christmas Festival, Gingerbread Baby wants to enter with his band. The only problem? He doesn't have a band! Fortunately, his creator Matti knows how to make one for him, and soon they are entertaining the locals with their catchy music. But when one of the little girls in attendance smells gingerbread, and wants a snack, a new problem arises...

Like its predecessors, Gingerbread Christmas boasts a catchy rhyming refrain, sung by the Gingerbread Baby, as well as Jan Brett's gorgeously detailed artwork. Although I have to confess that I wasn't quite as engaged by the story here as I was with the previous titles, the artwork was every bit as appealing as ever, with a gorgeous color palette, characters in beautiful (Swiss) folk costume, and lovely folk-style decorative borders and side-panels that revealed more of the story. At the end of the book there is even a pop-up page, in which a splendid Christmas tree (on which Gingerbread Baby is hiding) unfolds. Recommended to anyone who read and enjoyed the first two books about this insouciant delectable hero, as well as to any Jan Brett fans. ( )

Great illustrations, of course, and the story is suitable for "secular" Christmas reading, without featuring Santa Claus. ( )