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

by Paul Fleischman, Julie Paschkis (Illustrator)

Overview

Drawing from African, Asian and European folklore Fearsome Giant, Fearless Child: A Worldwide Jack and the Beanstalk Story retells the classic fairy tale in a single narrative through multiple world cultures.

The story of a child confronting a man-eating giant or witch is told the world over. These heroes go by many names and might be normal in size or no bigger than a thumb. Though they're often scorned for being the youngest and smallest, they're well-armed with cleverness and courage.

In this companion to Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal, Newbery Medal winner Paul Fleischman and illustrator Julie Paschkis combine elements of this story from different traditions—Jack and the Beanstalk, Tom Thumb, Kihuo, Vasilisa—to create one narrative, one complete picture of a small boy's triumph.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250258175
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	04/23/2019
Series:	Worldwide Stories
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
File size:	56 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Paul Fleischman won a Newbery Medal for Joyful Noise and a Newbery Honor for Graven Images. He is also the author of young adult novels including Whirligig and The Mind's Eye, and middle-grade novels including Bull Run and Seedfolks. He lives with his wife in northern California.
Julie Paschkis is a painter and award-winning illustrator of many books for children, including Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People, Building on Nature: The Life of Antoni Gaudi, and Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal: A Worldwide Cinderella. A love of pattern and of folk art shows in all her work. She lives in Seattle, Washington.

Editorial Reviews

"This collaboration offers a kaleidoscopic presentation of the traditional boy and giant story by collaging text fragments from different cultures’ tellings. . . These shifting elements alchemically coalesce into a sturdy plot in which the littlest and least-regarded triumphs." — Publishers Weekly

"The story is brimming with tension and adventure . . . an excellent addition to storytelling and fairy-tale collections." —School Library Journal

From the Publisher

2019-01-28

This latest in the Worldwide Stories series is a culturally eclectic remix of the "Jack and the Beanstalk" tale from the pair who looked at Creation tales in First Light, First Life (2016) and the Cinderella story in Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal (2007).

This confusing, composite variant scarcely resembles the "Jack and the Beanstalk" rendering that most North American readers might know. The author draws on the stories of 16 different countries from Indonesia to Gambia, the United States to Mongolia, interweaving them into one narrative that will require multiple reads to interpret. With monsters that include an ogre, witches, the devil, and a giant, readers will wonder where the familiar pieces of the story are. Those acquainted with the variant arguably best known in North America will recognize "Fee, fi, fo, fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman" but little else. For example, there are no magic beans in this retelling. Where the narrative lacks cohesion, the unifying thread is left up to the illustrator. Paschkis' comely folk-art-style gouache paintings recall the tapestries and textiles of the various countries represented in the story, and readers will be able to discern the main character in each illustration. It's a shame that more extensive notes than the pointer to SurLaLune Fairy Tales and Margaret Read MacDonald's Tom Thumb (1993) are not offered for those curious readers who would wish to further pursue the divergent iterations presented here.

A clever but disjointed take, with no Jack and no beanstalk. (Picture book/folktale. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews