Jack and the Box


By Art Spiegelman (Toon Books/Raw Junior)
ISBN: 978-0-9799238-3-8 (HC)        978-1-9351793-0-6 (PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: One to share and explore whilst snacking under the tree… 8/10

Cartoonist Art Spiegelman was born in Stockholm in 1948 before the family moved to America and should have been a dentist. However, he rejected parental aspirations for a life in comics. He first began his exploration into his family’s history in 1972 when he created a short strip for the Underground anthology Short Order Comix, in which he first examined his own reactions and response to his mother’s suicide in 1968. That exercise led to a desire to understand his troubled father Vladek and a determination to turn his recollections and experiences as a Holocaust survivor into a series of strips.

The individual chapters of what would become Maus began appearing at the end of the decade as monochrome mini-comic inserts in Spiegelman’s experimental, increasingly prestigious art-house anthology Raw!

The first collected edition of the scratchy, primally evocative chapters were released in 1986 with a concluding volume published in 1991.

It’s a graphic masterwork everybody should read, but the man is not defined by that tale alone. Dedicated to the comics medium, Spiegelman has created many other impressive projects, but probably none as potentially worthwhile as Toon Books/Raw Junior.

With his partner and wife Françoise Mouly, Spiegelman set up the publishing firm as an imprint of his legendary alternative comics magazine to provide high-quality comics stories in formats that would entice pre-schoolers and beginning readers into a life-long love affair with strips in particular and reading in general.

Their stable of talented creators have produced a wealth of superbly superior comic tales in three accredited educational standards (Level 1: First Comic for brand new readers, Level 2: Easy-to-Read for Emerging Readers and Level 3: Chapter Books for Advanced Beginners) all of which the company supplement with on-line tool TOON-BOOKS.com which offers follow-ups such as interactive audio-versions – in many languages – plus a “cartoon maker” facility enabling readers to become writers of their own adventures about the characters they have just met in the printed editions.

Most books also include a page of tips for parents and teachers on ‘How to Read Comics with Kids’.

Having set up the system Spiegelman inevitably succumbed to his creative urges and crafted an actual book for the line…

Aimed at the very youngest beginners, Jack and the Box comes in landscape format (in both hard and softback editions), and at 237 x 159 mm will fit perfectly in tiny hands as it tells the tale of little Jack as he exults in a present from Mum and Dad.

The box prove resistant to his unwrapping assault but when he puts it down, a strange clownish creature springs out of it and gives him a fright…

It is a most wilful toy with a mind of its own and a fondness for sudden surprises. Soon, however, Jack is utterly intrigued as the toy’s pranks draw him into a world of games riddles and surprises such his/its name… Zack!

And once they’re properly acquainted Zack begins to share his secret gifts and puzzles, enticing Jack into a fabulous world of mystery, excitement and imagination where his many friends such as Mack and Quack are always ready to play their boisterous games…

This is a terrific tome for those just starting to read on their own (winner of Publishers Weekly‘s Best Children’s Picture Books of 2008, The White Raven Award 2009 and Bank Street College of Education’s Best Children’s Book of the Year), delivering deliciously anarchic antics and explorations, reassuringly bolstered by parents who are supportively present but not oppressively dominant.

Moreover, rendered in delightfully pared-down, flat-coloured cartoon line, this is also a beguilingly seductive visual experience for bookworms and browsers of any vintage.
A Toon book ™© 2008 Raw Junior, LLC. All rights reserved.