Chaos Reigns in Simms Taback's This Is the House That Jack Built

I can’t remember a time when I was not aware of the poem The House That Jack Built. It’s a very familiar cumulative tale, a companion to such classics as The 12 Days of Christmas, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, The Rattlin’ Bog and There’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea. Plotwise, I’d say this story has more going for it than any of those, with a cast of characters who do more than get given away as Christmas presents or swallowed by a senior citizen with an insatiable appetite. Unsurprisingly, this poem has served as the basis for a picture book on several occasions. The most chaotic of these adaptations has to be Simms Taback’s.

Taback, who also created the picture book Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, puts a very distinctive stamp on this story with his wacky illustrations. The book itself merely indicates that “the artwork was done in mixed media by a mixed-up person,” and there certainly is a lot going on in this book to justify the use of a variety of materials. In addition, while the poem itself is the same as always - with the exception of the a “mystery guest” who is added at the end - Taback makes amusing little comments throughout the book. This begins before the story technically does, on the copyright page. A silhouette of the house, with each of the characters staring out of a different window (except the mystery guest, who only appears in shadow), accompanies a number of notes about the book. My favorite? “Any resemblance of these characters to people living or dead is completely accidental or was done on purpose.”

Each stanza of the poem gets two pages. The page on the left depicts the object or person most recently mentioned in the poem, while the page on the right lists the words to the previous part of the poem and illustrates them accordingly. It doesn’t take long for the right-hand pages to become very crowded. By the end of the book, it actually spills over to fill most of two pages. I like these pages best after “the man, all tattered and torn,” shows up, since it’s amusing to see him tagging along with the maiden, lovestruck and oblivious to the fact that she is as forlorn as ever in his company.

My favorite page in the book, meanwhile, depicts nine different types of cheese, leaving lots of options for what will end up in the house. Taback decides on Cheddar, which he describes as “smelly”, but he also offers for our consideration Gouda, Swiss, Camembert, Muenster, Brie, Fontina, Port-Salut and, right smack-dab in the middle... American. (Sigh.) It would appear that our opinions on cheese differ quite a bit, since he affixes some type of negative adjective - usually involving aroma - to every cheese except American, which happens to the one type of cheese I avoid whenever possible since I find it so bland and generally un-cheeselike. Taback declares it “yummy.” However, I am prepared to overlook his poor taste in cheese in gratitude for his decision to devote an entire page to my favorite food.

Of course, he does something like this for every element of the poem. While the opening page merely shows a single picture of Jack’s house, the two-page spread just inside the cover shows 32 different houses, along with descriptive clips from newspaper ads. The cat page shows mug shots of 11 different types of cats, along with the chosen Alley Cat. Other options include Sphinx, Maine Coon, Siamese, Manx and Cheshire. My favorite is Cat in Hat Cat, who is characterized by “goofy behavior” and who “speaks in rhyme.” The cow, rather morbidly, is labeled according to cuts of beef, along with anatomical notes like “udder” and “tail” and absurd labels like “Big Mac,” “meat balls” and “Whopper” (near which is posted the helpful “w/cheese”). Meanwhile, the back cover takes us slightly out of the poem to suggest a list of tools Jack might have used to build his dream home.

No matter how familiar you are with the poem, you’re likely to find something novel in this book, and if you’re like me, Simms Taback’s This Is the House That Jack Built will leave you chuckling. And craving a cheese sandwich.