The King and the Seed
Kindergarten-Grade 3—A European retelling of a Chinese Mandarin story. When a king realizes he is growing old without an heir, he devises a competition to find his successor. Expecting a tournament with sword fighting and horseback riding, the knights and nobles gather in their brilliant raiment with gleaming swords and spirited horses. Jack, the son of a local farmer, comes merely to witness the event. To a surprised gathering, the king distributes seeds: the competition is to see what can be grown from a seed in the following six months. At the end of that time, all are asked to bring what they have grown to be judged by the king. The lords all proudly display lush blooms in pots, but Jack's has nothing but compost. The king reveals that he has played a trick by boiling the seeds before distributing them so that they wouldn't sprout. Only young Jack has been honest and, because of that, he becomes heir to the king. He fills his kingdom with gardens and holds flower shows to encourage natural beauty over sword fighting. The pencil and watercolor illustrations are fabulous—full of color, imagination, and humor. The well-written text tells an appealing story. Pair it with Demi'sThe Empty Pot(Holt, 1990), which is another version of the story, or with "Jack and the Beanstalk" to contrast and compare what happens when a different boy named Jack plants a seed.—Mary Hazelton, Elementary Schools in Warren & Waldoboro, MECopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.