Fearsome Giant, Fearless Child: A Worldwide Jack and the Beanstalk Story

This collaboration offers a kaleidoscopic presentation of the traditional boy and giant story by collaging text fragments from different cultures’ tellings. Each story fragment is boxed and framed by color-saturated illustrated backgrounds evoking the text’s origin country, which is also spelled out in a subtly incorporated title card. The format evokes the sense of an eager chorus, with voices from Ethiopia, Gambia, Greece, Japan, the Philippines, and elsewhere jostles in a folkloric cacophony that offers conflicting details. A boy who is “the youngest of twelve. The youngest of thirteen” must steal or find something: a golden harp, a prize bull, a wish-granting jewel, a thousand pearls. These shifting elements alchemically coalesce into a sturdy plot in which the littlest and least-regarded triumphs. Ages 4–8. [em](Apr.) [/em]