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Summary
Summary
A lively playtime adventure that becomes a warm and cozy bedtime book -- perfect for every little knight-in-training. From the illustrator of the award-winning We're Going on a Bear Hunt.
Night is falling and playtime is nearly over. But brave King Jack and his faithful knights Zak and Caspar are still protecting their castle fort from fierce dragons and terrible beasts. This captivating, joyful make-believe adventure is the perfect bedtime story for brave children everywhere. Fans of Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site and Dinosaur Roar will especially enjoy this imaginative tale.
An ALA Notable Book
Bank Street Book Committee Best Children's Books of the Year
Kate Greenaway Award
"It's an enchanting tribute to both full-throttle pretend play and the reassurance of a parent's embrace."-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A tale of make-believe that children will delight in hearing again and again."-- School Library Journal (starred review)
"Sure to be read aloud again and again, this testament to imaginative play exudes warmth."-- Kirkus Reviews
Author Notes
Peter Bently lives in Devon, England, with his wife and their two children.
Helen Oxenbury, the New York Times bestselling illustrator of Ten Little Fingers, Ten Little Toes and We're Going on a Bear Hunt , lives with her husband, the illustrator John Burningham, in North London, England.
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Fort making is one of the great enterprises of childhood, but just in case the art has been lost to some, Bently (The Great Dog Bottom Swap) and Oxenbury (There's Going to Be a Baby) open their felicitous collaboration with what is essentially an illustrated instruction manual: "A big cardboard box,/ an old sheet and some sticks,/ a couple of trash bags,/ a few broken bricks,/ a fine royal throne/ from a ragged old quilt,/ a drawbridge, a flag-/ and the castle was built." Declaring himself king, Jack leads his friends Zack and Caspar in defending the fort against a menagerie of imaginary creatures. But when Jack's knights are carried off by giants (their parents), Jack finds that a solo defense of the fort is no picnic: "He wished he was anything else but a king." Bently's verse never misses a beat, and Oxenbury shifts between monochromatic, engraving-like drawings and pale watercolors; the images feel as if they were drawn from a classic fairy tale book and contemporary life simultaneously. It's an enchanting tribute to both full-throttle pretend play and the reassurance of a parent's embrace. Ages 3-5. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Two preschoolers and a toddler build a cardboard-box fortress in the backyard and protect it from dragons and beasts until darkness falls and their parents come to take them home. From this simple premise of imaginative play, Bently and Oxenbury create a classically sweet picture book. Bently's unforced rhyming couplets swing along, and Oxenbury, in gentle watercolors and cross-hatched line drawings, showcases her distinctive gift for portraying the personalities and relationships of young children through their shapes and gestures. Jack the ringleader is a bit tentative and vulnerable. We see it in his skinny little ankles. Zack, second in command, is stu dier. His strong fingers try to pry his father's hand away as he's taken home to bed. Casper, the bald and bottom-heavy baby, looks at the older boys with deep adoration. Even the dragons and beasts are particular characters -- the truculent green scaly one, the shy bucktoothed pink spotted one, and the tufted dog-nosed muddled one. This is a fine story for all sword-wielding, cupcake-eating kings-of-the-castle and their friends. sarah ellis (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Three boys in various stages of diaperdom build a cardboard castle in the back garden and fight dragons and beasts until suppertime in this picture-book adventure from award-winning British creators. With just a few words per page, the rhyming text is printed in typefaces that vary in size and boldness, underscoring the mounting drama, while Oxenbury's alternating full-color watercolors and sepia sketches juxtapose the boys' imaginings with their real-world context. Enormous dragons and fantastical creatures retreat when the boys attack with wooden swords and sticks, but the young heroes are no match for thei. gian. parents, who come to retrieve them, one by one, at day's end. The rhyming verse, large trim size, and detailed illustrations, filled with Oxenbury's usually fine sense of young children's body language and expressions, make this a suitable story for group sharing, while the sweet, intimate tone will make it a family favorite.--Barthelmess, Tho. Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
At a time when everyone obsesses over boosting self-esteem, a book about too much ego should have its place. Van Dusen ("The Circus Ship") tells the humorous tale, with boisterous, eye-popping illustrations, of a tiny king with an oversize ego, hoist with his own petard. But it's Tessa, a put-upon wench who also happens to be a sorceress, who steals the story, and eventually the king's (also sizable) heart. She probably deserves better. THE BOY FROM THE DRAGON PALACE A Folktale From Japan. Retold by Margaret Read MacDonald. Illustrated by Sachiko Yoshikawa. 32 pp. Albert Whitman & Company. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 7) This cautionary Japanese folktale offers an evergreen lesson: Be careful what you wish for. In this case, Aladdin's genie is the son of the Dragon King, a boy with "the snottiest nose you ever did see!" As long as he is fed shrimp soup, he grants his keeper's every wish. Children, predictably, will enjoy the boy's snuffling of nose and slurping of soup. Parents will like the parable against greed. And despite the tale's ick factor, Yoshikawa's drawings are lovely and adorable. KING JACK AND THE DRAGON By Peter Bently. Illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. 32 pp. Dial. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8) Oh, the glorious art of childhood fort building! At once contemporary and classic, this book will appeal to any child who believes in dragons, beasts and the swords that slay them. And, as affectionately described by Bently ("A Lark in the Ark") and Oxenbury ("We're Going on a Bear Hunt"), no E-Z Fort kit is required. Even the baby with a Binky is allowed to play. Eventually, the giants (parents) invade, bravery fades and the parental beasts are entirely welcome. THE ORPHAN A Cinderella Story From Greece. By Anthony L. Manna and Soula Mitakidou. Illustrated by Giselle Potter. 40 pp. Schwartz & Wade. $37.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8) The most striking thing about this "Cinderella" is its palette of cool olive greens and Aegean blues, and - breathe easy, parents of brunettes - its dark-haired, brown-eyed heroine. The story also holds interesting departures. The fairy godmother is actually Cinderella 's mother, speaking from the grave: "Go, my child, go to good,/ With all my blessings, go!" she urges. "Your sorrow weighs upon my heart,/ Your pain, it wounds me so." The tale becomes one not just of maternal absence but of eternal motherly love. The slipper remains the same. HOW THE LEOPARD GOT HIS CLAWS By Chinua Achebe with John Iroaganachi. Illustrated by Mary Grandpré. 38 pp. Candlewick Press. $16.99. (Picture book/middle grade; ages 7 to 11) In this powerful illustrated fable for older picture book readers, Achebe, the celebrated Nigerian writer, offers a parable about how power corrupts. The story follows a vainglorious dog - Scar to the Leopard King - who thwarts the animal kingdom's interspecies peace and deposes its king. This is anticolonialist fiction for middle graders, with a touch of Orwell's "Animal Farm," and is as much a critique of those who blindly follow power as of those who wrongly assume it. There's a lesson to be learned, but no happy ending. THE FAIRY TALES OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM Edited by Noel Daniel. Translated by Matthew P. Price with Noel Daniel. Illustrated. 320 pp. Taschen. $39.99. (All ages) This gloriously illustrated collection, Taschen's first children's book, includes lesser-known tales like "Little Brother and Little Sister" and "The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs" along with the favorites. Best are the timeless illustrations, mostly European, gleaned from previously published work from the 1820s to the 1950s. The stories, if not all their characters, live happily ever after. PAMELA PAUL ONLINE A slide show of this week's illustrated books at nytimes.com/books.
School Library Journal Review
PreS-K-Three little boys play make-believe before bedtime in Bently's rhyming picture book (Dial, 2011). Jack plays the King and his friends Zack and Casper are his knights. They protect the castle by fighting dragons and beasts, until "giants" come to put each boy to bed. The muted colors in Helen Oxenbury's charming illustrations make this book perfect for quiet time or bedtime reading. The boys are adorable as they act out their imagined adventures. Andrew Watts narrates the story with a soothing voice that matches the tone of the book. Page-turn signals are optional. A great addition to libraries and classrooms serving young children.-Jenny Ventling, Dayton Metro Library, OH (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A trio of children spends the day playing in their fort, defending it from dragons and beasts, before reality intrudes at nightfall.Gentle, unassuming rhyme tells the story of Zack, Caspar and King Jack, who make a glorious fort in Jack and Caspar's backyard out of a cardboard box and other tried-and-true materials. As she did so memorably inWe're Going on a Bear Hunt, Oxenbury alternates black-and-white vignettes of the "real" goings-on with gorgeous, full-bleed single- and double-page spreads of the fantasy action. Her palette and composition of these fantasy scenes (and the lumpy miens of the beasts) recall Max's sojourn among the wild things, but this is no retread of either classic. The childrenpreschooler Jack, his toddler brother Caspar and pal Zackare happy playmates consciously indulging in make-believe. Reality and fantasy merge at the end of the day when "a giant came by and went home with Sir Zack" (a parental hand drags the protesting little boy off) and "another giant came and took Caspar to bed" (he is unceremoniously carried off in the crook of Mommy's arm). Does King Jack have the starch to defend the fort by himself? Who needs starch with a Mommy and Dad like Jack's?Sure to be read aloud again and again, this testament to imaginative play exudes warmth.(Picture book. 3-6)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
