Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Stobbs. Johnny-Cake

Johnny-Cake is a children's book with text by Joseph Jacobs, with art by William Stobbs, published in 1973 (Jacobs' text was originally published in 1890). It is available at the Internet Archive.

The version of Johnny-Cake from Joseph Jacobs' English Fairy Tales has often been anthologized and reprinted, so the key feature of this version is the illustrations, which are big and bright; the Johnny-Cake is running and rolling. Here he passes by the well-diggers and taunts them:

The chain is cumulative: "I've outrun an old man, and an old woman, and a little boy, and two well-diggers, and two ditch-diggers, a bear, and a wolf, and I can outrun you, too-o-o!" ... until the sneaky fox finally puts a stop to Johnny-Cake's escape.

There is nothing really special about Jacobs' version of the story, so I've given this just a 2-star rating; in addition to different illustrations, I think we need different versions of the story too. By the time this project is finished, there will be a large selection of stories about Johnny-Cake, Gingerbread Man, etc., and you can find them all with this label: Type: Johnny-Cake.


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