copyright 1906; The Reilly & Lee Co. publishers, Chicago; hardbound; many illustrations throughout; pages in good condition with some minor fading and minor soiling on some; boards good with minor rubbing and edgewear (pics).
 
John Dough and the Cherub is a children's fantasy novel, written by American author L. Frank Baum, about a living gingerbread man and his adventures. It was illustrated by John R. Neill and published in 1906 by the Reilly & Britton Company. The story was serialized in the Washington Sunday Star and other newspapers from October to December 1906. Like the Oz books but unlike many of the author's other works, John Dough was issued under Baum's name rather than one of his pseudonyms. 
 
Throughout his text, Baum is careful never to specify the sex of the character Chick the Cherub, even to the point of referring to Chick as "it" instead of "he" or "she".[2] Chick dresses in androgynous pajamas; Neill pictures Chick in a Buster Brown haircut that could fit either a boy or a girl.
 
The publishers wanted Baum to resolve the ambiguity, but he refused. Eventually they made the best of the situation: in the publicity campaign for the original edition, Reilly & Britton conducted a contest in which the book's child readers could vote on Chick's sex.