Word: beanstalk
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Great Books," and most people think of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, not Jack and the Beanstalk. But Jack has won a place, along with Winnie-the-Pooh, The Jungle Books and excerpts from James Thurber, in a respected and fast-growing reading program called Junior Great Books. Created for elementary and secondary schoolchildren by the Chicago-based Great Books Foundation, the reading-discussion program does not aim to "teach" the classics. It tries, instead, to teach young people to enjoy good books and to understand better whatever they read. Explains Edwin P. Moldof, the foundation's vice president...
...Jack and the Beanstalk, for instance, why is Jack rewarded rather than punished for taking objects from the giant? (A possible answer: Jack paid with his mother's cow for the beans that grew into the giant's beanstalk. Possible comeback: But he didn't pay the giant.) Does Jack succeed because of magic, good luck or his own efforts? (The story includes some evidence of all three.) The students also mull over different characterizations of Jack and the giant in two different versions of the story...