Readers will feel as clever and brave as Jack as they outwit and outrun the giant in this engaging, entertaining app.
Nosy Crow’s design cleverly weaves games and adventure into this favorite folk tale.
As in the traditional tale, Jack tries to help his mother by bringing their cow to market but is instead swindled by a nefarious peddler. The presentation features Nosy Crow’s trademark excellent narration by child actors, witty speech bubbles and terrific illustrations, but it doesn’t stop there. Right from the start, readers are asked to help Jack clean Daisy the cow and scale the heights of the beanstalk, tackling challenges in a gamelike mode. When Jack reaches the castle, readers must help him solve nine different puzzles. Some draw on the classic story: Readers must gently lift up geese to discover which one lays golden eggs. Others create new games that effectively exploit the iPad’s interactive abilities—tilting the iPad to maneuver a bucket down the well or assembling a broken mirror that uses the iPad camera to reflect the reader’s image. A treasure map lets readers navigate the story, choosing which puzzles to solve and allowing them to skip ahead to the final chase scene whenever they’re ready. Different endings emerge depending on the treasures Jack brings back—perhaps it’s just some bean soup, or maybe it’s a house overflowing with a bountiful feast.
Readers will feel as clever and brave as Jack as they outwit and outrun the giant in this engaging, entertaining app. (iPad storybook app. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
Another empowering outing led by a dynamic young role model.
The third title in the Ambitious Girl series finds young Maya wanting accomplished women to get their due.
On a school trip to Washington, D.C., brown-skinned, bubble-braided Maya is full of questions, among them “How many representatives are there?” and, while checking out the statues and monuments, “Where are all the women?” Maya’s teacher tells her that they’ve seen all the “popular” statues and monuments. Maya is as dogged (“But what about Eleanor Roosevelt? Or Mary McLeod Bethune?”) as her teacher is dismissive: “Those aren’t on my list.” (Maya’s teacher follows the same list every trip.) Back at home, Maya is newly awakened to the lack of female representation in her orbit—she notices that streets and “even her own school” are named for men. Is there anything she can do about this? Maya’s teacher’s cluelessness feels a bit implausible, more like a plot device to steer the story in the right direction, but Maya’s righteous indignation is believable, and her corresponding activism will energize readers. Valdez gets into the spirit of things with her invigorating digital art: Maya and her multiethnic classmates and neighbors are colorful dressers with smiling faces, which fosters a sense that wherever Maya goes, a warm and ebullient community is there for her.
Another empowering outing led by a dynamic young role model. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9780316561341
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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