Quirky, Magical Fun

Gingerbread Girl by Paul Tobin. Illus by Colleen Coover (Top Shelf Productions, 2011, 112pp.)

How many people would willingly describe themselves as a “tease”? Annah Billips does. She’s a sweet but fickle girl in her twenties, an American Amélie who fears commitment, has a thing for girls with afros, and likes to set up two dates when she intends on keeping only one. Why does she act the way she does? The answer is a complicated one. Like the Gingerbread Man, she constantly defies the other characters—as well as the reader—in their attempts to pin her down. Through the course of the story, a handful of her peers step forward to examine her character: her friend and part-time lover, Chili; a phony psychic she hired to help find her missing sister; even a pigeon flying over the city, just to name a few. Annah’s story is a quirky, magical portrait that’s as strange as it is delightful. Recommended for mature readers due to adult content.