Jack and the Wonderbeans

ISBN: 0-8131-1735-6

Long ago, but perhaps not so far away, Jack and his widowed mother were living near Wolfpen Creek, Kentucky. A hard winter came along, and a hungry Jack sold his mother’s cow for three wonder beans, complete with guarantee: “Sow them and they will feed you your life tee-total.” Now, Jack knew a bargain when one hit him in the face, but hearing this news his mother had a cow. She tossed the beans out the window as she hooted, “You don’t know beans!”

Perhaps we’re all familiar with this big beanstalk adventure, in somewhat different guise, but few may know how Jack and his mother were “poor as Job’s turkey,” or the way the giant’s wife planned to make Jack into a stew sprinkled with dill weed, or that the giant didn’t really say “Fee, fie, foe, fum” when he caught a whiff of Jack in the air. How did Jack get away from the giant the first time? Once he was safe, why ever did he go climb that beanstalk for the second time?

James Still’s delightful Appalachian retelling of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” with illustrations by Margot Tomes, was the New York Times Book Review Judges’ Choice for Best Illustrated Children’s Book when it first appeared in 1977. This reprint of Jack and the Wonder Beans makes available to readers a lively, down-home rendition of a beloved children’s classic. Both young and young at heart will chuckle as they join Jack on his journeys up and down the beanstalk. With good humor and a keen appreciation for the dialect of Kentucky’s mountain people, Still has created a tale of joy and love for his region in this charming children’s book.

James Still (1906-2001), was born on Double Creek in Alabama, one of 10 children. For most of his life he lived in a log house between Dead Mare Branch and Wolfpen Creek in Knott County, Kentucky. He enjoyed a long relationship with Hindman Settlement School where he first began work as a librarian and lived in his later years.

His early books – a book of poems, Hounds on the Mountain (1937); his celebrated novel River of Earth (1940); and a collection of stories, On Troublesome Creek (1941) – were all published by The Viking Press. It was not until 35 years later, after Pattern of a Man was first published, that there was revival of interest in his work. Other books include a novel Sporty Creek; the collection of stories The Run for the Elbertas; The Wolfpen Notebooks; and a number of books for children: The Wolfpen Rusties; Way Down Yonder on Troublesome Creek; Jack and the Wonder Beans; and An Appalachian Mother Goose. His two later major collections of poems are The Wolfpen Poems and From the Mountain, From the Valley.