A Sweet Story

If she could have imagined beforehand the series of incredible events she was accidentally setting in motion, she never would have said it. But how could she have known? All Carol said was: "It won't be Christmas without a new cookie." All she meant was that for as long as she could remember Christmas had included a box of Orna-Doons: a dozen gingerbread cookies, with a matching gingerbread man painted in lifelike detail as an ornament to be hung on the tree. But now Nacoco, the company that made Orna-Doons, had discontinued the product, so this year there would be no cookies to enjoy, no excited anticipation to see what the new ornament would be. How could Carol know that her five-year-old daughter, Emily, would take what she said literally? How could she know that Emily would decide that the only way to make Christmas happen was to go to the Nacoco factory and make a new cookie? And how could anyone imagine that a dozen Orna-Doons from previous Christmases would climb down from the tree to help her?

With a mysterious homemade gingerbread man with no name to lead them, it's a dirty baker's dozen of four-inch heroes, from the piratical Long John Ginger and the blustering Nikita Krunchev to the stoic Chingachcookie and the pathetic wannabe rapper Vanilla Icing. What they do as they pursue their impossible mission will change the lives of everyone they encounter: Emily and her dying grandmother, the corporate CEO looking for something more meaningful than success, the undocumented migrant who longs for the wife and child he left behind, and the security guard who dreams of conquering Hollywood with a pitch for "Die Hard in a cookie factory."