Jak and the Magic Nano-beans

April 15, 2016
Grades 2-5 This volume in the Far Out Fairy Tales series presents a reworked, sci-fi version of Jack and the Beanstalk. In this story, Jak is a girl with an unruly turquoise mohawk, and her cow is actually a robot, CDW. Jak and her mother are among the humans left behind on a messed-up Earth after those who could afford to leave rode up a space elevator to live in a pristine community far from the planet. Jak takes up a deal from the scrap man to break into the Cloud Kingdom and steal some nano-beans to help her people on the planet and to keep CDW. Once there, however, Jak finds all the people gone and a nasty, many-tentacled monster ready to eat her. The color scheme of the cartoonish, cinematic panels helps cultivate a strong sense of location, with dusty tones on Earth and florescent hues in space. Jak and CDW make a dynamic team in this action-packed tale. Kids who love Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens should like Jak, too.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)