Famous Adventures of Jack

by Berlie Doherty

Jill finds herself in a story-world of magicians and dragons and floating castles and the most gruesome giant of all time. She finds good Jack, bad Jack and good-for-nothing Jack but not the one she is looking for.

Genres: Fantasy

139 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2000

About the author

Berlie Doherty née Hollingsworth is an English novelist, poet, playwright and screenwriter. She is best known for children's books, for which she has twice won the Carnegie Medal.She has also written novels for adults, plays for theatre and radio, television series and libretti for children's opera.

Reviews

[Mohima · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book filled with thought provoking, imaginative stories stemming from one main story. Each about the different Jacks and their adventures. Each story is flooded with magic, mystery and tricks.

The main story is about a girl called Jill who is given a sack filled with old sentiments and goodies. She takes it to an old woman who lives in a cottage, only to discover that each item in the sack has it’s own story about each Jack and their adventures. But there is one story which she is really intrigued by, which was the greatest mystery about a magic belt engraved in writing in another language.

This is an excellent book to read at the end of the day just before home time to children of years 1-4. Each story saved for the next day, making the children excited about the next story time the day after.

It is filled with adjectives and adverbs which will be great for their writing and grammer tasks. The stories are full of imagination, magic and mystery which will be excellent for literacy tasks instilling thought and imagination in to the pupils. For example, “…he flew over White Mountains and purple seas, he flew over blue forests and meadows yellow with flower…”

I love the way the author blends in poetry, similes and play on words to create fun and excitement. For example, when the giant said, “Bring me Jack and bring me Jill, and bring me the cat so I can eat my fill.” This is a great way to get the children involved and get them to chant these words together.

[Meagan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a collection of various "Jack" fairy tales. I wasn't actually a huge fan of the stories within a story formatting of it, so it was hard for me to get through despite the easiness and length of it.

[Debrarian]

Read half. Stories derived from famous fairy tales.

[Tj · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm in 6th grade, and I think this book is great. Some of the stories are funny, and some are exciting. There are so many fairy tale Jacks!

[Varsha Seshan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The kind of stories you would find in an old, hard-bound book titled '365 Illustrated Fairy-Tales'. I enjoyed them!
http://www.varshaseshan.com/blog/famo...