Another common form of the well-loved horn-book is that of gingerbread. These were popular in the age of Gingerbread Fairs, where the alphabetical slabs of gingerbread were offered as bribes for children clever enough to master their letters. Made from molds much like the one shown here, children would gnaw letter by letter as they learned their alphabet. This, too, was recorded in the literature of the day:
I mention’d diff’rent Ways of Breeding :
Begin We in our Children’s Reading.
To Master John, the English Maid
A hornbooks gives of Ginger-bread,
And that the Child may learn the better,
As he can name, he eats the letter
Proceeding thus with vast Delight,
He spells, & gnaws from left to right.
But shew a Hebrew’s hopeful Son,
Where We suppose the Book begun ;
The Child would thank you for your kindness,
And read quite backward from our Finis :
Devour the Learning ne’er so fast :
Great A would be reserv’d the last.”
Prior’s Poems (From “Alma,” Canto II., in Poems on Several Occasions, 1725)
Gingerbread mold hand-crafted by artist and scholar Gene Wilson of HOBI Cookie Molds and Hornbooks.