Jack Tales

Enter the fantastic world of one of America's greatest living storytellers where wicked giants and enchanted animals pursue and entice Jack, an everyman hero and trickster. These three traditional tales relate the antics and misadventures of a poor mountain boy whose innocence, ingenuity, and luck enable him to outwit the wicked forces of the world around him. The stories have been handed down orally, from generation to generation of mountain folk.

The Blue Ridge Mountains have been home to the Hicks family for eight generations, and Ray Hicks has been telling the stories he learned at his grandfather's knee for most of his seventy-eight years. An audio CD of Hicks in his inimitable dialect, accompanied by traditional local music makes it a delightful read-along for children and adults.

Grade 2-5-Three Appalachian tellings of European folktales appear in crisp literary language with some dialect ("seed it," "cain't," "a'goin'") that reflects the oral versions told by the master North Carolina storyteller. Salsi's written versions of "Jack and the Northwest Wind," "Jack and the Bean Tree," and "Jack and the Robbers" read aloud well and are shorter than Richard Chase's classic renditions found in The Jack Tales (Houghton, l943), but are bare of simile compared with James Still's Jack and the Wonder Beans (Putnam, 1977; o.p.). On the accompanying CD, Hicks freely tells each story in his slow, considered manner, with traditional Appalachian fiddle, mouth harp, and harmonica music between the selections. The recordings embellish the written text as if to emphasize that storytellers never repeat exactly the previous version but this eliminates the possibility of following along in the book. Smith's earthy and robust oversized watercolor illustrations and black-pencil sketches of the crude yokels who bedevil the handsome overall-clad Jack are perfect for sharing with large audiences. Their limited palette of blue, brown, and green focuses attention on the action and matches the emphasis of the text.
Susan Hepler, Burgundy Farm Country Day School, Alexandria, VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 3-5, younger for reading aloud. A beloved fixture of the National Storytelling Festival, Hicks reaches out at last to a wider audience with this trio of Jack tales, offering not one but two takes on each: a fluid, slightly countrified print version and a freer rendition told on a CD in a distinctive backwoods drawl. In the first tale, Jack sets out to find "where the Northwest Wind comes out at" and turns the tables on some would-be tricksters; the second has him climbing a beanstalk to pilfer a giant's pocket knife, "hog rifle," and golden bed cover; in the last story, he picks up some aging animal companions to help drive away three robbers. Working in a style part Thomas Hart Benton, part Robert McCloskey, Owen Smith alternates pencil drawings with full-page rustic, warmly hued scenes, all featuring big, rumpled-looking figures with comically exaggerated expressions and dressed in well-worn clothing. Although several of the pictures are poorly placed, giving away action that doesn't occur for several pages, the stories themselves resonate with drama, hilarity, and dry wit. This oversize volume offers Jack tales in a format more accessible to children than Richard Chase's collections and is a fitting tribute to a storyteller's storyteller, a rare link between the modern storytelling movement and an older tradition. GraceAnne DeCandido
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