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Crazy Jack LaurelLeaf Books Donna Jo Napoli Books

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Crazy Jack LaurelLeaf Books Donna Jo Napoli Books

As with everything Donna Jo Napoli writes, this retelling of the Jack and the Beanstalk fable is nothing less than perfection. As she has so often done before, Ms. Napoli has found the depth in what seems on the surface to be a rather simple little tale. I won't go into detail. I won't run the risk of ruining the book for anyone. All I can say is this. Read it! Read this book. You will love it. I promise.


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Crazy Jack LaurelLeaf Books Donna Jo Napoli Books Reviews

I love Donna Jo Napoli's work, and this latest book is just more proof of how wonderful her writing is! Donna chooses her words perfectly, it's like poetry, each word has meaning and is to be savored. I never liked the story of Jack and the Beanstalk until now. This book weaves a subtle, mesmerizing tale of sanity and insanity -if you call love insanity. I could see ties to the author's earlier work "The Magic Circle" in "Crazy Jack" and the love found in "Zel" and " Prince of the Pond", but in this book the author has blended all the best elements more perfectly into a book you can easily recommend to a child or an adult equally.
"Crazy Jack" is another great work by Donna Jo Napoli; a twist on "Jack and the Beanstalk".
Nine year old Jack is perfectly happy living in rural England, with his mother, father, and the girl he loves next door. His family is poor, but happy, with food, a home, and each other. When Jack's father disappears over the dangerous cliff, he can't believe that he forgot the most important thing in their family - having each other!
Everyone believes Jack has gone crazy with the loss of his father, the way he cries and claws at the cliff. His beloved Flora even says so! When his mother asks him to sell their last valuable possession, the cow, he does - but only for a bag of beans that were supposedly his father's.
Jack's mother is incredibly angry with him, but Jack plants the beans by the cliff - and they grow! Now he can climb the beanstalk, but what will he find?
This story was an excellent retelling of an old fairy tale, with much more depth and story to it! I'd definately recommend Napoli's other books, such as "Zel" and "Spinners".
Napoli is a master at her work, so that every time I pick up one of her books, I am astounded by its beauty and characterization, its personality and reverence for the human soul.

The Brothers Grimm will tell you what happened to Jack when he climbed up the beanstalk, but Donna Jo Napoli will actually take you there. I marvel at her well-placed words, her ingenious ideas, her deeper meanings. For example, in Crazy Jack, there is a continual allusion to rainbows, and when Jack plants the famous beanstalk, the beans he got from the fairy are violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. After the drought in the beginning, rainbows come and dance across the sky. When Jack climbs up the beanstalk for the second time, he sees a rainbow that no one else there can see because of a former curse on the giant by a fairy whose gold he tried to plunder. The giant's domain from then on was to be only seen in varying shade of grayish-gold, to remind him of his foolish greed. But Jack can see the rainbow, indicating indirectly to us that gold is not all Jack cares about. Invariably, that rainbow above the clouds on Jack's second visit leads to a pot of gold, which Jack then steals from the giant and hurries with back down the beanstalk. We come upon a very strong symbol in every instance. Rainbows are crazy hopes and crazy dreams and a crazy wish that will never be to find that eluding pot of gold!

Jack's father also plays a pretty big role in the story. He had worked hard, and taken wagers (gambling) when odd jobs weren't enough, but still it was not sufficient to stave off the hardships of a farmer's family during drought. When 9-year old Jack see his father climb the cliff singing and never return, he was near to driven mad by greif. Years later, he still fights against his confusion and despair, and seeks a way to, somehow, follow his father to the clouds.

The reason I so admire Ms. Napoli is for the ingenuity and passion with which she writes. Her words have such conviction, that when you are through, you are sure the whole tale must really have occurred in that far off little place in England because by that point, you are too drawn in for common sense. Once you enter into Jack's world, you won't want to put down the book for fear of missing what he might do next. You'll be rooting for him all the way up the beanstalk!
On the surface, Crazy Jack is just a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk, with some of the extremities of the story smoothed out and a pleasant rural English atmosphere.
However, the subtleties of this story are incredible-- from the disturbing portrayal of Jack's loving parents as the giant and his mistress in the distorted reality of their house in the clouds, to the myriad delicate touches that truly flesh out the tale. Napoli is excellent at creating a realistic rural environment-- it adeptly avoids being stiffly historical and instead is vibrantly alive. Equally masterful is the theme of the three things necessary to be happy-- food on the table, a roof over their heads, and the most important one, forgotten by Jack's father-- each other. The gifts stolen from the giant each time fulfill each in order. Though the hen no longer lays golden eggs, Jack discovers the value of real ones; though the basket is no longer of gold, Jack recognizes the value of stones, and though the harp no longer sings on its own, Jack finds he can learn to play it and win the third part of happiness. The beanstalk becomes a symbol of Jack's grief and guilt towards his father's death, and in the end, Jack must destroy it himself.
Crazy Jack is superficially a children's book, with its small number of pages, but it is the incredibly subtle adult themes running through it that make it a profound and beautiful tale. Napoli's other retellings-- The Magic Circle, Zel, Spinners and Sirena are also recommended.
As with everything Donna Jo Napoli writes, this retelling of the Jack and the Beanstalk fable is nothing less than perfection. As she has so often done before, Ms. Napoli has found the depth in what seems on the surface to be a rather simple little tale. I won't go into detail. I won't run the risk of ruining the book for anyone. All I can say is this. Read it! Read this book. You will love it. I promise.