Review: THE BAKER'S DOZEN retold by Heather Forest

 3.77 STARS from 22 GoodReaders

I love folktales and I love sharing them with children, and THE BAKER'S DOZEN was a lot of fun.

The story begins in Van Amsterdam's bakery.  He is a successful baker who is renown for his delicious Christmas cookies.

 

All is well, until the day it occurs to Van Amsterdam that if he short-changes his famous recipe, just a little bit, that he can make even more profit per cookie.

He does this, and low and behold, no one seems to notice and he becomes even wealthier than before.  That is until the day when a wizened old woman shows up at his shop. Well, you know how we are. We suspect something is not quite right; and when the old woman demands 13 cookies instead of 12, the baker refuses. 

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The old woman then storms from his shop, and is the case when you treat we old women poorly, his business self destructs.

...That is until the she returns a year later and asks for a 'dozen' cookies, and he gives her 13.

 

Heather Forest does an excellent job telling this tale.  And I love that she isn't beyond trying to tuck in some other economic truths into the story.  (You might not discuss 'short term versus long term business thinking' with your little ones, but you certainly could point out to older children that the baker brought disaster upon himself by being greedy and causing people not trust him.)

So good story, well told.  The artwork, as you can see, is charming.  

And THE BAKER'S DOZEN is worth sharing.

Pam~

THE BAKER'S DOZEN
A Colonial American Tale
retold by Heather Forest
Susan Gaber (Illus.)

Reading Information:
Page Count:
no Accelerated Reader information currently available
Lexile: AD850L
--sample pages and reviews available

updated by Pam
November 2014