Jack and the Beanstalk and other stories book revew

I am reviewing now a children's book which i think would make a great addition to all book cases.

Books are a favourite in my house and my boys do love to sit down with me and share them. The latest one we have is Jack and the Beanstalk and Other stories, this was a present which my middle little man got from his teacher for Christmas and he loves it.

The book is the paperback and on the cover we have a picture of Jack chopping down his beanstalk, the main colours are white and green. The title of the book is at the top of the cover and at the bottom we have author and illustrators names. The back cover is again white and green and has a picture of Jack, his Mother and a cow and a short paragraph about the story.
The stories included in the book are Jack and the Beanstalk, The Wolf and the Seven little kids, The Hare and the Tortoise and The Three Sillies. I don’t feel the need to give a short description about the stories as they are all quite well known ones.

The book is laid out in a very pleasant and easy to read way. The text is on all of the pages and is a good size, it is always black, with the exception of the titles which are coloured but still easy to see, and it always on plain white sections of the pages. The words used are all quite basic and simple which means children will follow the stories with ease. There are lots of illustrations in the book and they are very pleasant to look at. The style of them reminds me a lot of Quentin Blake’s work. They are all coloured and do help with the telling of the story. The pictures are only small and on some pages we have up to 3 pictures so as you can imagine they are only basic and there is not a lot of detail n them to be talked about.
The stories are easy to read and are short so they can be read in under 5 minutes. I do enjoy this book as we have the choice of reading just one of the stories or the whole book in one sitting. This is great for bedtimes as each of the stories can be read swiftly and you can come back to the book the following night and start on a new story.

My boys do enjoy me reading this book to them but I have also found that my 8 year old can read all of the stories in this book with ease and he loves reading to his little brothers. He does funny voices which they love and it is a joy to listen to the laughter this book creates.
The book has be re-written by Mary Hoffman, she has taken the original stories and condensed them down into shorter ones but she has done this in a great way so the main parts of the story are all still included, I like this idea as it means my boys can have the whole story and hear the ending without loosing interest or getting bored. She has tried hard to keep the facts as they were and I feel she has done a super job. The illustrations are by Anna Currey and she to has done a good job with these as they do make the reading experience a bit more pleasurable as my boys get to see pictures of the characters being talked about.

The book has been published by MacMillan and if forms part of their First Nursery Collection. There is no retail price on the back cover of the book and as this was a gift I have no idea of the price. I would be prepared to pay up to £4 for this book personally. I expect bookshops such as The Works would have this book for a good cheap price.
I am more than happy to give this book a good solid 4 stars. The stories are lovely and the pictures work well. I would say this would make an ideal present for children between the ages of 4-8.