Pistes d'exploration

Discuss what you do when you have a cold. What cures do you use?

Write a recipe for soup that you think the giant should eat. Think of really interesting (or unusual) ingredients to put in your soup.

Write the letter that Kate wrote to the giant, asking after his health and telling him about the Boys’ Restaurant.

Create and write a get-well card to the giant.

Talk about what you do when you feel sick.

Make a prediction about the story, right after “Before supper, could I have a look?”

Retell the story or perform a reader’s theater using lots of expression in your voice.

Tradition has it that homemade chicken soup can cure a cold. Imagine what kind of soup would help you cure a big, bad cold. 

With a partner, create a menu for the Boys’ Restaurant.

Jack and the Beanstalk, Stone Soup

Mots-clés

Humour , Picture book , cold (disease) , cooking , food , giants , restaurants , stories in rhyme

Commentaire descriptif

This rollicking, rhyming story will be a big hit with children, whether it’s read independently or with a group. A sick giant finds a remedy in his medicine book. Though he knows it’s wrong, he decides to make boy soup: “Think of the brotha good boy could produce. . . . One buttery boy, or better, a group.” Strong rhythms and rhymes carry a fully developed plot. When Kate tries to save her friends with an alternate soup recipe, disgusting ingredients will thrill young readers: “They put in some mudsome thick yellow glueand a generous dollop of dandruff shampoo.” The illustrations are cartoonish, expressive and full of fun detail. After tasting the kids’ soup, the giant’s cheeks bubble out, his eyebrows stand on end. Blasted back home by the giant’s enormous spit-up, the kids lie on the grass, soaked and surrounded by soup-debris. The last spread depicts a series of photographs showing the young friends making delicious dishes at their new “Boys’ Restaurant”—where they make the meals, they don’t become them.