~ borrowed from the library

COOKIE HOUSE is another little primer from Margaret Hillert. It's a retelling of Hanzel and Gretel. A cleaned up version without the parents being bad, basically because you can only do so much with 274 words --59 vocabulary words.

COOKIE HOUSE is at the beginning First Grade Reading level. As with many of these classic old primers an analysis has been done and the book has an Accelerated Reading, Lexile, and Fountas & Pinnell numbers.

In this version the parent tell the children to stay in the woods, that they don't have to work. The play and eat and then fall asleep after their parents don't return. Eventually they wake and find the witches delicious house and toss her in the oven and escape.

I'm looking at an older copy of this book and the artwork is gorgeous. It looks like it could have been done in the 40s or 50s although it is certainly more recent than that. Newer versions --Norwood House Press, 2017 -- are out there and I'm not sure whether the artwork has been redone.

Sample text from three pages:

Oh, help, help.
I do not like it in here.
Help me.
Help me.

Here I come.
I will help you.
See me help.

Go in. Go in.
We do not like you.
I will make you go in.
In you go. ( )

Part of a series of beginning readers that offer classic fairy-tales with simplified text, this book no doubt works well as a teaching tool. It is not, however, a storybook, and I think that outside of reading teachers, it will hold little interest for the adult reader. For their part, children will probably never encounter it, save in a scholastic setting.

I was curious about this book because I saw that it was illustrated by Kinuko Craft, whose work I greatly admire. I quickly discovered however, that the illustrations in this book bear almost no resemblance to Craft's more well-known work, as exemplified in picture-books such as Cupid and Psyche and The Twelve Dancing Princesses. They are of a different style altogether, with a cutesy, faux-Victorian feel to them. I was at a loss to understand it, until I looked at the publication information, and discovered that this was a reprint of a book originally released in 1978. This Hansel and Gretel must represent an earlier stage of Craft's evolution as an artist, one which she - happily - has left behind.

So beware, fellow Kinuko Craft fans, and don't waste your time with this one... ( )

Summery:
Two little kids when to work with their parents one morning. The parents went to work and they decided to wonder around the forest and saw a cookie house and decided to go see it.

Personal Reaction:
I thought it was a good book for maybe little kids around 2th grade. Its easy to read and have a lot of easy words to understand.

Extension Ideas:
1. Maybe make the kids make a cookie house in groups of 3 with their favorite kind of cookies.
2. Ask they whats there favorite homemade cookies.

This is a beginning-to-read story, so the already simple tale of Hansel and Gretel is stripped down to just 59 different words. However, I didn't buy the book for the story but for Kinuko Craft's beautiful illustrations. Well worth the price. ( )

A kindergarten or lst grade reader version of Hansel & Gretel. Fine for that purpose.

I bought it for Craft's illos. A mistake. An early work and nowhere near her the excellent artwork I've since come to expect from her! I own just about every work she's illustrated and wouldn't have believed this was hers but for the byline. ( )