Matt Harmon is a volunteer reader at Charleston Montessori School in Kanawha County. Shurtliff for so elegantly illuminating key economic principles to children.
They took gold, which only has value in exchange, and turned it into crops which have value in use. Jack and his sister Annabella save the day, with some help from the pixies, by turning the king’s golden eggs back into seeds that sprout plants. Under the gold standard era, France increased its share of world gold reserves by 20 percent, in essence taking money out of the world financial system and leading to a massive deflation spiral.
What good is gold (or paper currency) if it cannot buy food? This is a lesson the world should have learned during the Great Depression, particularly France. This illuminates a fundamental principle of money-it exists to facilitate exchange, but it is not valuable in and of itself. When the people complain to King Barf that they are poor and hungry, he dismisses their concerns because the kingdom has so much gold, so it must be rich. Yet, his people are suffering a famine due to crop failure. In the story, the giant King, King Barf, covets gold above all else he equates his massive gold stock with a rich kingdom. It was a fun adventure tale, but couched within it are great lessons for kids regarding worth, value, and the nature of money. I read this to a group of 2nd-5th graders for the Read Aloud organization. The king of the giants has taken something that belongs to them, and they'll do anything - even dive into a smelly tureen of green-bean soup - to get it back.Jack: The True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk by Liesl Shurtliff
There's giant fun to be had, too: puddings to swim in, spoons to use as catapults, monster toads to carry off pesky little sisters. The kingdom of giants is full of slugs the size of sheep, venomous pixies as tall as grown men, and a chatty cook with the biggest mouth Jack has ever seen. Adventure finally arrives one day in the form of giants, and soon Jack is chasing them to a land beyond the clouds, with his little sister, Annabella, in tow. It's not that he's bad he just longs for adventure - and there's nothing adventurous about toiling day and night to grow yucky green stuff. Liesl Shurtliff, New York Times bestselling author of Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin, continues the action-packed Time Castaways trilogy with book two, in which the Hudsons sail across time and history as they embark on a daring rescue missi. And when Jack gets bored, he makes mischief. Fans of Adam Gidwitz and Chris Colfer will give a GIANT cheer for this funny fairy-tale retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk! All work and no play makes Jack extremely bored.
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