Jack B. Ninja. By Tim McCanna. Illustrated by Stephen
Savage. Orchard Books/Scholastic. $16.99.
Just when it seems that nursery rhymes are
no longer much fun for today’s young people, along comes Tim McCanna with a
brand-new take on the old “Jack be nimble” rhyme – one that, accompanied by
delightfully off-kilter drawings by Stephen Savage, shows there is still plenty
of life in those old bits of nonsense. Actually, nursery rhymes were generally
very well-disguised social comments, dating to a time when criticism of the
powers-that-be could result in penalties up to and including death – so people
whose names are long lost found ways of making fun of and critiquing feudal
society through rhymes that only seemed to mean nothing. Nowadays, though, the
nonsensical elements are all that anyone pays attention to, and in all the
excitement of our video-saturated, technologically savvy age, who has time for
that sort of wordplay?
Well, McCanna and Savage certainly do, and
so will kids lucky enough to add this picture book to their collection. The
book starts with a small, completely round-headed ninja, his eyes the only part
of him that is visible, peeking out from behind vaguely Oriental architecture –
and then the narrative itself begins, on the next page: “Jack B. Ninja! Jack,
be quick!/ Jack, jump over the bamboo stick!” That is just what Jack does,
running toward – where? He is on “a secret mission” amid pagodas, atop walls
and roofs in a place where faceless, spear-carrying guards march past in
formation. What exactly is the mission? It involves getting past the guards,
and then, “Jack B. Ninja keeps his cool./ Dips into the garden pool.” And he
swims to the shore, then quietly sneaks into “a bandit cave” to find a “stolen
treasure chest.”
There is plenty more excitement to come: a
trip wire drops Jack into a trap, and the bandits are after him – he needs to
use his grappling hook and rope to escape. But there is something rather
unthreatening about the three bandits: Jack jumps on their heads, from one to
the next to the third, until he grasps the rope and flees – with the bandits
watching from a rooftop as Jack “brings the prize to Ninja Master.” But – oh,
no! The bandits pursue Jack, and there is about to be a big fight,
when…everything changes. And that is the delight of Jack B. Ninja: it starts as a stylized adventure story but
eventually becomes a wonderful family celebration. Of what? It turns out that
the whole dress-up activity is in recognition of Jack’s birthday – with, sure
enough, a suitable cake: “Jack B. Ninja flips and kicks./ Cartwheels over the
candlesticks.” And everybody celebrates, then heads home over the rooftops to
leave behind one slice of cake that remains visible just as the sun comes up.
Gently surreal, warmly amusing and just
silly enough to keep young readers and pre-readers interested, Jack B. Ninja keeps the cadence of the
“Jack be nimble” nursery rhyme, preserves some elements of the original (such
as those candlesticks near the end), and offers wonderfully cartoony
illustrations that bounce all the ninja moves and ninja determination all over
the book’s pages. A short, simple and thoroughly amusing
retelling/reorientation of the even shorter “Jack be nimble” original, Jack B. Ninja is enough fun so that it
may inspire parents to grab a book of original nursery rhymes and see whether
contemporary children can in fact be captivated by these very old “nonsense”
stories to the same extent that the parents themselves surely were when they were kids.
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