Jack and the Beanstalker

Graveyard School #17

by Tom B. Stone

Fe, fi, fo, fum. Now the giant is going to have some fun....



Jackson needs to earn some money--fast. When he mows old Mr. Thompson's lawn, that's what he thinks he's going to get. Right? Wrong!



Mr. Thompson pays Jackson with magic beans! Now he's back to square one. And when he throws the beans out the window, his money troubles don't seem so big after all.

Genres: Childrens

100 pages, Paperback

First published February 10, 1997

About the author

Tom B. Stone is a pseudonym used by the published author Nola Thacker.

Reviews

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just read my third Graveyard School book called Jack And The Beanstalker.When I was a kid Jack And The Beanstalk was one of my favorite fairy tales.I remember as a kid very vaguely having a book with really beautiful illustrations.And this story was in it.As for the Graveyard School adaptation,it was ok.The story begins with Jackson who everyone calls Jax.And I tried my best but I couldn't find any information of him having metal arms or shouting "gotcha"when he hits people.For those of you that don't know I'm sorry.That was a Mortal Kombat reference.Anyway Jax and a group of friends are playing soccer and Tyson, one of his best friends ends up kicking the ball through a glass window at graveyard school.All of the kids scatter but Jax gets caught by a character who presumably lives in the school named Basement Bart.Now in one of these books they did a good job of having me wonder what Basement Bart looks like.It had me intrigued.This book we get a full description.He's basically a guy that's tall, has a ponytail and wears camouflage.He grabs Jax and is pretty mad that he broke the window and wants Jax to pay for it.Basement Bart basically threatens him.Jax heads home and asks his parents for money without trying to be to obvious.His parents deny him as he's already bought things with his allowance and is indeed broke.Jax ends up stealing a piggy bank from his brother who is very neat and good at saving money.He brings it to the park and breaks it, only to find a little bit of money in it.He gets help from Tyson and they go to a bank to try and get a loan which is an actual funny back and forth between them and the loan officer.Jax goes home and basically grabs everything from his room to sell and it still isn't enough so on his way home he gets stopped by this mysterious very rich looking guy that offers Jax some money, if he cuts his grass for him.The yard is huge but Jax complies.It seems the more he cuts grass the more it pops up,and after cutting for a while,the grass just disappears.The guy pays Jax but not in money but in beans.The man tells Jax not to eat them and Jax heads home.When he gets home his brother notices his piggy bank gone,so before his brother beats him up he tries to pay him in the magic beans.His brother gets mad and throws the beans out the window.The next day Jax wakes up and sees the beanstalk and has no choice but to climb it.When he reaches the top he sees giant butterflies, Giant Cats and of course Giant family members.Jax knows the fairy tale so he knows about the goose that lays golden eggs and that's what he's going after.But what's weird is the goose is normal size.But anyway this is basically the ending, so I won't spoil to much.I was very excited to read this book and I don't think it was terrible but I also didn't love it.For one ,it took sixty pages to get to the beanstalk.Keep in mind this book is one hundred pages exactly.So that's only forty pages of giant stuff.I also didn't love the writing here.I can't explain it but I had to actually pay alot of attention or I'd get lost.For example at the beginning of the book the ball that breaks the window isn't named a soccer ball until page like eight or so.There is also a scene towards the end of the book where the writing randomly changes perspective back and forth between Jax,Hugo and an airplane full of passengers.I give Jack And the Beanstalker a three out of five stars.I also wanna mention that this was a buddy read and while reading this we were chatting about coincidences.Well in this book Hugo,who is the young giant has a birthday which is cool because I picked this book not because of that.But just because I'm a big fan of the original fairy tale.