Jack and the Box: Toon Books Level 1

The comic fan in me picked this one first to read purely on Spiegelman's name. And from a sense of curiosity as to whether Spiegelman; a master of the comic form, could adapt his style to such a different and challenging audience as your average 4 year old. Personally, from the view of the grown up I definitely think he does. Jack receives a little present from his mom and dad, a jack in the box. After initially being frightened of this "silly toy", Jack starts to play with it and soon realises the fun he can have with his new friend (who he later finds out is called Zack). The initial scaryness of the character is quickly overcome by Spiegelman's visual emphasis on making Zack just look silly plus the clever repetition of the phrase "silly toy". Within a few pages Jack 's reality makes way for fantasy and the adventures of Jack and The Box get wilder and wilder, with the introduction of Mack, who lives in Zack's hat and his duck Quack, and the lots and lots of little ducks belonging to quack. Chaos ensues in a very Dr Seuss-like way. In fact, with it's simple set-ups and language, full of plentiful repetition for the young reader to play with, Jack And The Box felt very much like one of the good Dr's works. And that, of course, is never a bad thing Visually, Spiegelman keeps things nice and simple, with rabbits playing the main roles and a page limited to 2 panels at most. But within this simplicity there's a beauty of design. Reality is a dull, faded blue colour scheme, but as fantasy starts to creep in, the backgrounds start to change, first yellow, then pale purple and finally bright orange when things are at their most chaotic. It's a simple, yet brilliantly effective touch. A child won't notice it directly perhaps, but the visual stimulus of the increased vibrancy of the colour will definitely have an effect upon the reader. Jack And The Box would be a wonderful present to give to any young child. But to a child reluctant to enter the world of reading Jack And The Box, together with all of the other fine Toon Books, may just be the best present you could give.

My 4 yr old really loved this book. The art is great, cute story, really held her attention. Great book for little ones. We really enjoyed it.

Art Spiegelman, the author, learned to read by looking at comics, or so he claims. My little girl learned how to read NO, WOW, HEY, NOW, BAD, even SILLY tonight as we 'read' this little story. As Art would probably write, she LOVED it! If someone didn't get it, let me decode what this story is about. Or, at least that's my little girl's reading of it. Jack gets a BOX and ALL that follows is a PLAY of Jack's imagination AND Jack IS a SILLY boy. Watch for the REDS - all things RED are creatures of JACK's imagination. Kids should learn not only reading a few simple words but they should also feel encouraged to let their own imagination run silly and explore the unexpected. Technical details: hard cover, simple but effective drawings, minimal colors, vocabulary well-suited for a 4-6 year old. Did I mention that my girl enjoyed it? She can't wait for her girlfriends to come visiting so she can go over the story with them. Right now, she's trying to tell it to her mother. The story being so silly and unboring I can see how we can go over it a few more times and keep practicing some of the simple words. The 5 stars are awarded because my girl's clearly enjoying it and because she felt so proud for being able to point to me the clue pointing to the Jack's adventures being imaginary (it's the lamp).

Earlier this year when the first batch of Toon titles came out I was less than enthused. The problem as I saw it then was that the titles seemed little more than traditional comic book fare with expensive paper, better printing, and hard covers. I couldn't reconcile the content with the cost and felt that they were best suited for libraries who would do well with studier bindings, not with the general consumer (picture book readers) who would tire of the titles quickly. Now with the second round of releases I'm finding this less to be the case, but its book specific. Spiegelman's Jack and the Box isn't merely " a first COMIC for brand-new readers" as it says on the cover, it's actually a subtle and sophisticated tool that helps introduce readers to the concepts in reading and understanding comics. It is a primer on comic literacy at the simplest level, and clever. I doubt Spiegelman could have delivered anything less. The book opens simply enough with a single illustration of Jack (Rabbit) being given a new toy. Two simple word balloons establish the order of both reading left-to-right and lead the viewer's eyes to follow the action accordingly. With a flip of the page we are now presented with a double page spread of four equal sized panels. There's the conflict of the first panel (Jack can't open it), the tension in the second panel (watching the box, waiting for something to happen), the action in the third panel (a clown pops out of the box, jack-in-the-box style, scaring Jack), and a punchline in the fourth panel ("Ha ha!" "What a silly toy!"). With a few words and some simple pictures a first encounter with a jack-in-the-box is turned into the core joke on which all future variations will be built. Since humor is generally derived from the unexpected turn, from the deviation from what is expected or established, Spiegelman can now train young comic readers to learn how to read for visual cues and verbal repetition. It's a winning combination and, to the casual reader, a subtle lesson in how to read comics. Jack now has a series of comic adventures with the toy, each four panels across the spreads, built on the idea of an uncooperative toy and its unexpected behavior. We've been told it is a very silly toy so we aren't surprised to see it talk back or misbehave. There's the slightest hint of Cat in the Hat style mischief, and a sense of a child's play world being realistic to the child but confusing to adults, which adds another layer to the book. As the comic stories add and build, and the chaos grows, there is a need for release at the end that comes in Jack explaining all that has transpired to his curious parents, the denouement so to speak. Order is restored, and Jack now safely has mastered the silly toy the same way the reader has mastered the complexities of a comic narrative. While there are other books out there for the picture book crowd that work within the comic framework (Regis Faller's Polo books, for example) there are fe