Beanstalk  H.P. Fryer     

   

 

Beanstalk
H.P. Fryer (text & ill.)
Scholastic (2026)
Picture book
36 pages, Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7590 003 2

 

Don’t let the title put you off. This is not a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk. Although a wee bit of it is. And it is not about fairy stories and magic. Although it is a wee bit.

 This picture book is the story of five generations of highland cattle. (Well, it’s not really.) It’s actually a marvellous story about storytelling.

‘One spring, a little calf was born. His mum called him Bo. Bo lived in the field with his mum, and Nanny Pat (his mum’s mum) and Nana Bertha (his mum’s mum’s mum) and Old Nan (his mum’s mum’s mum’s mum.)’

 All this means that Old Nan is Bo’s great-great-grandmother, who can remember things that everyone else has forgotten long ago. Bo loves listening to her stories about how their field used to have a magic forest and strange things happened there.

‘Did you know how I jumped over the moon once?’ she’d say.

Old Nan’s stories sometimes seem a little familiar, especially to young readers. (The title page illustration is a helpful reminder for adults who have memory slips.)

‘Did you know I was once sold for three magic beans?’

As the seasons pass we see the various groups of other animals on the farm growing up. Bo even develops a tiny pair of horns. Searching for the magic Old Nan often talks about, Bo discovers a golden object. Is it the farmer’s missing gold tooth? Old Nan is tired but enthusiastic.

‘Whoopee! That’s magic, my boy! That’s a magic bean! You plant it and see what happens.’

Bo buries the bean and autumn turns to winter. ‘In winter, nothing grew and the trees were bare.’

 In spring a shoot emerges and soon a huge plant is growing taller and taller, as the cattle look on. (There’s a designer’s surprise at this point in the book which hints at magic and adventure.)

 Beautiful little blue flowers grow up all around the huge beanstalk. Nan tells Bo, ‘Every spring, when these flowers bloom, they will remind you of your Old Nan and her stories. In fact, I think it’s time for my next adventure. I might just climb up that beanstalk. Tonight. Imagine that!’

 

Bo can’t imagine it. ‘Cows can’t climb. We don’t even have thumbs!’

 What follows is a very touching modern fable, a treatment of acceptance of the death of a loved one in a simple and moving narrative. This is an endearing, enchanting story with a satisfying message.

 H.P. [Hannah] Fryer has created pictures which match her prose for their simplicity, grace and storytelling power. Every page is a charming painting of the highland cattle in their field, throughout the changing seasons. Small details, such as Old Nan’s blue headscarf, become important elements of the storytelling magic which happens in these pictures. There are also tiny details to reward the careful reader. When Bo buries the bean, we can see that there is an old crown and a hand-mirror lying far deeper in the soil; a worm is admiring itself in the mirror.

 The moving final pages bring completion to Old Nan’s life and they also bring some comfort to Bo, who is able to accept that she has left the field forever. Whether she climbed the beanstalk is for the reader to decide.

 Trevor Agnew
9 Nov 2026  [Review 3882.]