From Publishers Weekly
Down-home storytelling and comic pictures of silly giants enliven Johnson's (Fearless Jack) newest tale of the Appalachian boy-hero Jack. Trapped by a two-headed giant who threatens to fry him for breakfast, Jack outwits the foolish behemoth and his wife with a series of tricks, from squeezing milk from a stone (he has concealed a milkweed pod in his hand) to fibbing about a sheriff's posse that is coming to search for them ("I told you we shouldn't of eat them two deputies," the giant's wife wails. "Now we're in for it!"). Johnson's paintings make hay with the warts and snaggle-teeth of the giant's two faces ("both of 'em mud-fence ugly") as he licks his lips and tries to best the visitor introduced as "tender young Jack." The boy's trusty hound hovers in the background, his expressive face a lively barometer of the mood. The climactic illustrations show Jack convincing the two giants to hide down in the well, then kicking up "the awfullest ruckus you ever heard" to imitate the sound of the approaching posse; in the end, Jack cuts the bucket rope with a handy ax. This snappy story delivers a giant-size good time. Ages 4-8. (June)
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 2-One stormy day, young Jack takes shelter at the cabin of a pair of giants and uses his wits to escape with his hide. The giantess and her two-headed husband want him for a snack in the worst way but after he cleverly survives their first dastardly plan, they're afraid he might be "witched," so they set him some tasks to prove himself unfit for consumption. By "milking" a rock (really a milkweed pod) and ingenuously offering to move a stream, he astonishes his captors. Then Jack convinces them to hide in the well while the sheriff and posse investigate his disappearance. And, as "a giant's well hasn't got a bottom to it," that pair of giants "is still falling, like as not." Jack, in his cap and britches, is an ordinary lad, especially in contrast to the towering giantess and to her hirsute husband. The acrylic illustrations firmly ground this tall tale in Appalachia and capture its folksy feel-from Jack's bemused hound-dog companion to the giant's checkerboard pants. The liberal use of similes and metaphors, as well as the moderate but humorous dialect, assure a fun read-aloud. From the eye-catching cover of the two-headed giant licking his lips as he contemplates Jack to the author's note briefly tracing the "Jack Tale" tradition, this down-home yarn is a fine sequel to Fearless Jack (McElderry, 2001) and a solid stand-alone addition to trickster-tale storytimes.
Carol Ann Wilson, Westfield Memorial Library, NJCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
