“Jack and the Baked Beanstalk,” by Colin Stimpson, Templar, July 10, 2012, $15.99 (ages 3 and up)
Jack and his mom run a successful food truck located on the edge of a busy city. The café was clean, the food good and the customers happy. It’s a good life until the city council decides to build an overpass so people can get to their destinations more quickly.
The new freeway bypasses the little food truck and Jack and his mom are nearly broke. When they’re down to the last few pennies, Jack is sent to the store for some milk and coffee beans. He comes back with a can of baked beans some old man says are magic. Jack’s mother is not happy. She’s so upset that the can of beans gets thrown out the window.
Overnight, the can of baked beans sprouts into a gigantic baked beanstalk. Jack knows things are starting to sound like a fairy tale and sets to climbing the stalk in hopes that there will be treasure at the top. Sure enough, there’s a castle and a giant and lots of money. Jack fears the giant will want to eat him, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The giant is excited to have a visitor and cooks Jack up a delicious meal.
What Jack and the giant both need is something to make life better. If only there was some way of helping each other. …
“Jack and the Baked Beanstalk” is a delightful picture book. There’s a lot of life to this retelling of a classic. The text is fast and fun and the illustrations are beautifully lush. What fun it is to see Jack sitting down to a meal with the giant. Though not everyone may agree, I prefer this version to the original.
