Jack Plank Tells Tales by Natalie Babbitt, 2007 edition.

Written and illustrated by Natalie Babbitt. First edition, second printing, 2007. Michael Di Capua Books, an imprint of Scholastic.

Chapter I
How It All Began

"Jack Plank was an out-of-work pirate. he'd had a job, and a good job, too, on a lovely ship called the Avarice. But the thing is, Jack wasn't good at plundering. There's only one way to plunder: You have to yell and make faces and rattle your sword, and once you've got people scared, you take things away from them. That's what pirates do. But Jack didn't seem to have the knack for it."

Front Flap

"Jack did the only thing he could do - he went ashore to look for another line of work. The town was called Saltwash, on the coast of the Caribbean Sea, and he had a lot of helpful advice from the people in Mrs. DelFresno's boardinghouse. Somehow, thought, each career he looked into seemed to have something wrong with it. And every night at dinner in the boardinghouse, he tried to explain why. For who would want to work where there might be a troll, or the danger a crab caught in your beard? Or what about a music-loving crocodile? There were other things, too, that ran against every suggestion and took the wind out of his sails.

"At last, Jack decided he wouldn't be good at anything onshore and would have to back to sea, pirate or not. ..."

Natalie Babbitt (1932 - 2016) studied at Smith College and married Samuel Fisher Babbitt, with whom she collaborated on her first book, The Forty-ninth Magician, in 1966. She wrote and illustrated many great children's books, including Knee-Knock Rise, The Search for Delicious, Goodie Hall, Herbert Rowbarge, and Tuck Everlasting. Tuck Everlasting was adapted into two movies and a Broadway musical. She received the Newbery Honor, the Christopher Award, and the E.B. White award, and was nominated for the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award for lifetime achievement.

Etsy.com/shop/TheCharmedBookshop
Visit TheCharmedBookshop.com for more first edition children's books.

Condition: Near Fine/Near Fine. Dust jacket: Light shelf wear; small dent on front cover, top left corner. Red quarter-bound cloth cover boards. "Wisdom" written on front fly leaf else pages are clean, undamaged, and complete.