ALA Booklist (Thu Dec 28 00:00:00 CST 2023)

In this lively bedtime story turned graphic novel, Weiner, cowriter of Alicia Key's graphic novel Girl on Fire (2022), mixes autobiography with fairy tale in an adorable spin on "Jack and the Beanstalk." Weiner unravels a story incorporating aspects of his own childhood, putting himself in the place of Jack and fulfilling his daughter Estella's insistence on a riveting tale, full of giants, peril, misunderstandings, and lots and lots of soup. Full of adorable banter between Estella and Andrew in real time, Weiner's accessible writing style will be entertaining for both kids and caregivers (particularly those who have their own bedtime-story interrupters on their hands). Crandall utilizes frame cuts from a slew of vantage points that make the story come alive with movement and help readers bounce from tale to storyteller with ease. Elementary-schoolers who can't get enough early reader comics, especially those who like fantasy adventures, will get lots of enjoyment out of Weiner's playful take on a classic story. A great read-alike for Chad Sell's The Cardboard Kingdom series.

Kirkus Reviews

A father tells his daughter a most entertaining bedtime story.Estella is getting bouncy, so her father, Andy, spins a yarn to settle her down. She requests a "little less than medium scary" tale, so he launches into a personalized version of "Jack and the Beanstalk." On an errand to buy groceries, young Andy encounters a suspicious, pompadour-sporting man with a bag of magic beans. He buys them, his mom throws them out the window, a beanstalk sprouts, and Andy climbs it to a town above the clouds. Curious and hungry, Andy seeks hot dogs instead of treasure and discovers that the giant is a child. The bedtime story doesn't deviate dramatically from the source material (though it has a happier resolution); the rapport between father and daughter is the real draw here. In Estella's imagination, cowboys and stagecoaches filled the streets when her father was young, and she tries to suss out how Daddy could possibly have been a mischievous kid. Crandall's bubbly illustrations serve the plot well, shining in sequences where a comparatively tiny Andy navigates the giant child's home. Andy, Estella, and their family are dark-haired and olive-skinned; the giant presents white and looks plucked from a midcentury sitcom; and the giant's monstrous peers have black, brown, and blue skin.A cheerful, slightly snarky riff on a familiar fable. (Graphic fiction. 5-9)

School Library Journal (Fri Dec 01 00:00:00 CST 2023)

Gr 1–4— Six-year-old Estella convinces her dad to tell her a bedtime story. She requests a "not-too-scary" one about him and his sister when they were kids and he opens with a tale that sounds very much like "Jack and the Beanstalk." The story smoothly jumps back and forth between the real-world dad and daughter to a fantasy adventure. They humorously discuss many life lessons with Estella adding her opinions. In keeping with the original tale, seven-year-old Andy, who is Estella's dad, is captured by a giant. Luckily his older sister followed him up the beanstalk. Together they escape and race back down, chop the beanstalk down, and cause the giant to fall. He regains consciousness and is able to explain the misunderstanding. Andy was afraid he would become soup for the giant, when in fact, the giant wanted Andy to make soup. The misunderstanding ends in friendship, and it turns out Andy makes terrible soup but throws a great pizza party. Crandall overlaps the two branches of the story while cleverly separating time lines by using pink tones for the present and yellows and greens in the fantasy past. Panels of all shapes and sizes make the story fun to read. VERDICT Laughs abound in this fractured fairy tale embedded in a bedtime story. Give this to fans of "Katie the Catsitter" by Colleen AF Venable and Giants Beware! by Jorge Aguirre.— Elisabeth LeBris