Customer Reviews

Jack and the Beanstalk

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Paul Galdone usually does a wonderful job retelling and illustrating fairy tales. Here the illustrations are up to his usual level, but he's changed the story: Jack and his mother are not on the verge of starvation, and once Jack climbs up the beanstalk and the giant falls asleep, Jack simply chops off his head. End of story -- no bags of gold, no sneaking back again, and no climatic chase back down the beanstalk yelling "Mother! Bring the axe!"

Furthermore, the story's been written in verse: "As Old Mother Twaddle was sweeping her floor, She found a new sixpence under the door. And as she surveyed it with exquisite pleasure, she called her son Jack to look at her treasure" is how it begins. Furthermore,some of the vocabulary is fairly esoteric: "I will comb thee and wash thee, and make thee quite spruce" or "Jack bought it for sixpence, then went to his mother, who at the sight of the bean made a terrible pother." Teachers of children who are learning English, beware!

The illustrations for the version of Jack and the Beanstalk are wonderful, however, the text is from a 1807 version and is difficult to read easily. This is compounded by the fact that it is in rhyme so some of the words/grammer are really strange to keep the rhyme pattern.

I took my grandkids (4yrs and 2 1/2yrs) to a children's theater to see the play with the promise of a trip to the bookstore to find the book if they behaved during the performance. There was no need for the bribe, they were so happy and engaged it was wonderful! We were so excited to hurry to the bookstore before it closed and we bought the only copy in the store. We hurried home to read it and YIKES! I'm so happy they can't read!!... ' be he alive or dead I'll grind his bones to make my bread!...drink some strong wine, tumbled down flat... Jack snached a large knife, chopped off his head, killed this great man'. I was quickly making up a kid friendly version and returned the book today!
Grammie did learn a good lesson however: no matter how rushed, I will ALWAYS skim through the story before purchasing - no matter how familiar I am with the tale.

I bought this for my 3yr old son!! He loves this story. In fact, I was in the childrens section of B&N and this was the copy the employee gave me. Too make a long story short,, Jack gave the giant wine so he would fall asleep. Then once the giant was asleep Jack grabbed an knife and chopped off his head and he was dead! Pretty much word for word from the book!!! I took it back!!! LOL