Jack and the Box: Toon Books Level 1

by Art Spiegelman

Overview

"This comic gem of a picture book demonstrates Spiegelman's ability to conquer his audience, no matter its constituents...This book choreographs jokes with an exquisite understanding of climax and denouement. As with the other books from this publisher, the design is sophisticated, making elegant use of panels, and easy-to-handle small format and subtle, low-contrast hues. That the vocabulary and the matchup of dialogue balloons to the action are geared to beginning readers is icing on the cake."—Publishers Weekly

Jack just got a new toy, and it’s full of surprises. Each time the box pops open, there’s a new and bigger surprise. Is it a silly toy, a scary toy... or something else entirely?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780979923838
Publisher:	Astra Publishing House
Publication date:	10/01/2008
Series:	Toon
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 10.90(h) x 0.36(d)
Lexile:	GN230L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Art Spiegelman is best known for his masterful two-volume Holocaust narrative, Maus, which in 1992 won a Pulitzer Prize. Born in Stockholm in 1948, Spiegelman rejected his parents' aspirations for him to become a dentist and he began to study cartooning in high school and drawing professionally at age 16. In 2005, he was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. He was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France in 2005 and—the American equivalent—played himself on an episode of “The Simpsons” in 2008. He has published Meta Maus, a companion to The Complete Maus, which was awarded the National Jewish Book Award. In 2011, Art Spiegelman won the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. His next book, CO-MIX: A Retrospective of Comics, Graphics, and Scraps, will be published by Drawn & Quarterly in September 2013. He lives in New York City, with his wife and collaborator, Françoise Mouly, TOON Books' Editorial Director.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly's Best Children's Picture Books of 2008
Winner of the White Raven Award 2009
Bank Street College of Education's
Best Children's Book of the Year

"Comic visionary and living legend Spiegelman has ignored the effects of Early Success Syndrome and plowed right ahead, finding different methods of bringing sequential art to new audiences in interesting ways...Balancing the aesthetic of comics with the familiarity of picture books, and even harkening back to Dr. Seuss, Spiegelman has produced a polished and fun story following a young bunny's struggle with his new jack-in-the-box, which proves to be hyperactive and rather argumentative. With plenty of word repetition and age-appropriate humor to keep pre- and early readers engaged and curious, Spiegelman has taken sequential-art basics and fitted them to his new audience. Like all the TOON books released so far...Jack and the Box is beautifully conceived and executed."—Booklist

"Framed in one or two sequential panels per page done in flat colors, simple shapes and with an all-dialogue text in balloons, the episode looks like a comic for brand new readers. There's a lot going on beneath the surface, though, and this may have some therapeutic value for older children too."—Kirkus Reviews

"This comic gem of a picture book demonstrates Spiegelman's ability to conquer his audience, no matter its constituents...This book choreographs jokes with an exquisite understanding of climax and denouement. As with the other books from this publisher, the design is sophisticated, making elegant use of panels, and easy-to-handle small format and subtle, low-contrast hues. That the vocabulary and the matchup of dialogue balloons to the action are geared to beginning readers is icing on the cake."—Publishers Weekly

"A mischievous, easy-to-read comic story similar in tone and audience to The Cat in the Hat...While the story is wacky, the cartoon artwork will appeal to a broad range of lower-level readers. True to its comic-strip roots, without the clutter that some children have a hard time reading, this title is a surefire hit."—School Library Journal

"In this hybrid of easy reader (repetition of word and phonemes, short sentences, and an emphasis on one-syllable words), comic (storytelling through dialogue and sound effects, emphasis created by typeface, division of the page into panels), and well-made picture book (creamy paper, classy endpapers), Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit give their son Jack a jack-in-the-box. Jack is frightened by the capricious and startling appearances of Zack, the jack-in-the-box clown, but he gains some sense of mastery and safety by calling Zack 'silly'...Easy readers have been the last territory of reliable coziness in children's books, but this is something new: a primer for our age of anxiety."—The Horn Book Magazine

"Art Spiegelman—known to many adults for his Pulitzer-Prize winning Maus, a graphic novel about the Holocaust—adds another success to the TOON Books cartoon format for early readers with Jack and the Box...Like the toy itself, the book offers delights and frights, in rapid succession. In this book, readers are observers, frame by frame, of what cannot be, but is, and the little boy knows and enjoys all that happens, a world revealed that he sees but his parents don't."—The Chicago Tribune

From the Publisher

A long way from Dick and Jane, this near-primer tries hard, and with at least some success, to rob a scary toy of its power to frighten a youngster. Jack the rabbit is thrilled to receive a box covered in stars from his fond parents. His enthusiasm for the gift changes to fright, however, when a green-faced, pop-eyed talking clown head suddenly lunges out at him. Still, in subsequent playful interchanges with it, Jack gradually comes to agree with its claim that it is not a bad toy at all but a silly one-but not before it, Cat in the Hat-like, unleashes both subsidiary toys and terrifying chaos in a sequence color shifts indicate may well be imaginary. Framed in one or two sequential panels per page done in flat colors, simple shapes and with an all-dialogue text in balloons, the episode looks like a comic for brand new readers. There's a lot going on beneath the surface, though, and this may have some therapeutic value for older children too. (Graphic early reader. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews