#228 of 1001 · March 16, 2021

Jack and the Beanstalk is the theme of the week, and you should absolutely check out this fine work by Ann Keay Beneduce and Gennady Spirin. Beneduce employs an eloquent writing style and engaging character details to evoke an aura of romance and classic adventure. Spirin’s masterful paintings, executed in watercolor and tempera, brim with glowing detail. Text-only pages are elevated by the presence of ornate borders in alternating designs—one shows images of the marvelous objects in the story, another holds coiled vines bearing bean plants, while the third contains a sumptuous banquet fit for a giant. A note for folklore enthusiasts: Beneduce adapts her story not from the Joseph Jacobs variant but from the iteration in the 1881 collection The Children’s Book. Here, Jack is given a motivation—indeed, an excuse—for his repeated theft. A fairy conveniently reveals that long ago the giant (posing as a friend) killed Jack’s father and purloined his marvelous treasures. Jack is therefore not stealing so much as reclaiming his birthright. Though plot devices like this are nothing new, it’s worth pointing out that they weaken the potency of the tale, inserted as they are by writers and editors afraid to celebrate Jack’s seemingly unjustified crimes. Moreover, this revisionist approach misses a deep truth about the structure of folktales and the function of their characters: the human Jack exists as purely good, the giant as purely evil. In the fight against a monstrous foe, a fairy tale hero needs no further justification. #jack #beanstalk #jackandthebeanstalk #giant #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbook #beautifulbooks #beautifulbookcover #beautifulbookcovers #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookillustrations #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks