World That Jack Built

by Ruth Brown

In this variation on "The House that Jack Built," Jack's action of building a factory on his land has a damaging effect on his surroundings

Genres: Picture Books, Environment, Cats, Childrens

26 pages, Hardcover

First published March 8, 1990

About the author

Born in 1941, Ruth Brown is the creator of some of Britain's best loved children's books. She has created a great many picture books for Andersen Press and is highly respected as an author and illustrator.
She attended Bournemouth College of Art, 1957–59; Birmingham College of Art, degree (with first-class honors), 1961; Royal College of Art, M.A., 1964.
She is married to artist Ken Brown and they have two grown-up sons and one grandchild.

Reviews

[J9 · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading A Dark, dark tale, I fell in love with it, and hoped I'd find some more "dark" stories in the Ruth Brown collection. While this isn't dark in any way, it IS, however, a wonderful story with some unusual and completely unique aspects to it. Ruth Brown once again has a flavor all her own with magical illustrations that just pull you into their beauty. The story is adorable, the illustrations are so detailed! My 3 yr old twins and 5 yr old both love Ruth Brown. Just an overall fun book that's a great addition to any children's collection. Highly recommend this author!

[Kathryn (Dragon Bite Books) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog Nine Pages .

Conveying an activist message like that of Seuss’ The Lorax, this book follows a beautifully illustrated black cat and a blue butterfly who wander from the house that Jack built to the next valley over where a rainbow-colored stream cuts through a dead meadow and flows past the place where the trees used to grow by the factory that Jack built. Jack is the villain here, living in beauty while creating horror and environmental terror. The text reverses itself, building from the house out to the valley then from the valley to the factory. There is repetition, but enough to seem lyrical more than annoying; there’s a camp song quality to the style for me because it reminds me of the bird in the egg in the nest on the branch on the tree with the roots in the hole and the hole in the ground and the green grass that grows all around. This story does a lot in and with just a little—and the illustrations are just stunning. The message—conveyed almost completely through the illustrations—is more simplified even than it is in The Lorax though, and it’s not as simple an issue as this book would make it seem, I don’t think. From the story itself, the evidence seems clear: factories bad. But a well-managed factory can do a great deal of a good for a community—and even a poorly managed might do some good for the community even if its short-sighted policies cause more harm than good ultimately.

[Amy T · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book easily had the potential to be five stars but it fell short in two areas. First, there wasn’t a smooth transition from the beauty of the natural landscape to the destruction of it. The writing just jerked to a stop and the reader is left to go back a few pages and decipher what happened. Second, there were too many bright and cheerful colors in the illustrations depicting the decline of the landscape. This was as equally jarring and confusing as the writing, and I was left frustrated because an editor could have easily caught this and told Brown to fix it. Being an advocate for the natural world, I do appreciate the story as well as the richly rendered artwork. It just needed to be better executed all around.

[Lorna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Firstly, I loved the art work in this book. Really beautiful pictures with interesting use of colour - would be good for an art lesson! I like how the cat and butterfly move through each image. The story itself sends a powerful message in the context of familiar verse.

[Buxmont Uu]

WAMWAO Session 11

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lovely art, standard cumulative story. It drags along with a peaceful, natural setting, and then BAM!!!! it delivers a very didactic message in the last couple of spreads, but the art is so impressionistic that it is hard to tell that the environment is being gradually destroyed untill the very last two spreads.

[Jaimie Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Brown takes a trip through the world that Jack (humankind) has built--as this man-made world might be perceived by a black cat.

This book has great classroom links..

Science- think about global warming and the effects fumes being pumped out of factories has on the environment.
Music- create a soundscape of the factory being built.
Dance- create movement based upon emotion. How does industrialisation affect the mood of the environment?
English- notice the juxtaposition of colours in the book to reflect the mood, produce a piece of writing or poem to describe the change