The rubric, applied

Classic stories and fairy tales

The longer stories and the old fairy tales are scored on the same eight things. Each mark is from 0 to 10. The number on a story is those eight added, divided by eight, and multiplied by ten. These are this desk’s marks. They are not a study, and they are not a command to hide a story.

How they differ

The twelve longer stories average 72. The eight fairy tales average 57. The gap is not that fairy tales are for children and the novels are serious. Several of the novels were written for the young. The gap is what each kind of story has time to do.

A novel stays with one person long enough to watch a change. Elizabeth Bennet admits she was wrong. Scrooge is shown his grave and still has a day left. Jane Eyre leaves the house she wants because the marriage is a lie. A fairy tale is a few pages and a rule. Stay on the path. Do not open the door. Do not eat the house. Build with brick. The rule is clear. The person usually is not. Red Riding Hood does not grow up inside the story. She breaks the rule and is eaten, or she is cut out of the wolf. That is the whole arc.

On courage the two shelves are close. A child who pushes a witch into an oven, and a boy who says he would rather go to hell than turn Jim in, are both risking something. On conscience, on neighbors and the law, and on what you leave, the novels sit higher. A fairy tale rarely has a town, a law, or a child who will still be there in twenty years. Beauty and the Beast is the exception. She takes her father’s place and comes back when she said she would, so it scores with the novels. Jack and the Beanstalk is the other end. The story cheers a theft. Clever is not one of the eight measures.

Limits are the fairy tale’s own ground, and even there the shelf does not win by much. Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and the three pigs are about appetite and shortcuts. Jack rewards the wanting. Bluebeard is the uncomfortable one. The murdered wives are the crime. The old telling spends more of its anger on the woman who looked. A tale can be old and still fail a measure. Cinderella, already on the longer list, sits in the middle for the same reason a lot of these do: the work is real, and the prize is a court instead of a house.

Measure	Novels and longer stories	Fairy tales
Work	7.1 / 10	5.9 / 10
Home	6.8 / 10	5.4 / 10
Conscience	7 / 10	4.3 / 10
Courage	7.8 / 10	6.8 / 10
Neighbors and the law	6.7 / 10	4.5 / 10
Limits	6.9 / 10	6.8 / 10
Truth	7.8 / 10	6.5 / 10
What you leave	7.5 / 10	5.5 / 10
The whole shelf	72 / 100	57 / 100

Industry is the name on a review. The words in this table are the same eight things, in the plain names.

The longer stories

1843
A Christmas Carol
85/100
Hand it on. A man is allowed to change, and a child's house is the test.
A rich man is shown the grave he is earning, and the clerk's house he has been starving.
1. Industry
  8/10
  The office is real work. Money that feeds no house fails the measure.
2. Household
  9/10
  The Cratchit table and the nephew's dinner are the life Scrooge refused.
3. Piety
  9/10
  The ghosts will not let him call his life a private matter.
4. Courage
  7/10
  He looks at his own grave and does not look away.
5. Republic
  8/10
  He owes his clerk, and he owes the poor of the city.
6. Temperance
  8/10
  Greed is named. The feast comes after the change, not instead of it.
7. Truth
  9/10
  He has been lying to himself. The story will not join the lie.
8. Stewardship
  10/10
  Tiny Tim is the future. The story is about what a man leaves.
Ebenezer Scrooge keeps the books and keeps nothing else. The story does not ask you to despise work. It asks what the work is for. Bob Cratchit's house, with too little food and a sick child, is the answer Scrooge has been refusing.
Then do this. Read the last stave. Then feed someone who is not obliged to thank you.
1813
Pride and Prejudice
70/100
A marriage is the plot, and a bad marriage has a bill.
A young woman refuses a rich man, and both of them have to admit what they got wrong.
1. Industry
  6/10
  The work of an estate is in the background. The story is not about a craft.
2. Household
  9/10
  Marriage is the whole question, and Wickham's charm is not allowed to be free.
3. Piety
  5/10
  The clergyman is a joke. Conscience in Elizabeth and Darcy is not.
4. Courage
  7/10
  She refuses money. He swallows his pride in writing and in person.
5. Republic
  7/10
  Rank is real, and a neighborhood still has an opinion that matters.
6. Temperance
  7/10
  Wickham's appetite is the part that costs the youngest sister.
7. Truth
  8/10
  The first judgment is wrong. The letter corrects it. She changes her mind.
8. Stewardship
  7/10
  An entailed house and five daughters. The future of the women is the stake.
Elizabeth Bennet will not marry a man she cannot respect, even when the money would save her family. That is the part to keep. Fitzwilliam Darcy will not stay the man who insulted her. That is the other part.
Then do this. Name one opinion you are sure of about someone in your house. Ask whether you have earned it.
Ancient
The Odyssey
79/100
The point is the return, not the monsters.
A husband spends ten years getting home. His wife holds the house. His son goes looking.
1. Industry
  8/10
  He builds a raft and a bed. The swineherd's work is honored.
2. Household
  8/10
  Penelope keeps the house for twenty years. The son has a father to wait for.
3. Piety
  8/10
  The gods are treated as real. A guest under your roof is a duty, not a mood.
4. Courage
  9/10
  He goes through the monsters because the house is on the other side.
5. Republic
  8/10
  The hall has been stolen. He puts it back under a law, not a whim.
6. Temperance
  6/10
  The lotus, the wine, and Circe are traps. He falls and he gets up. The suitors never do.
7. Truth
  7/10
  He lies to stay alive. The story loves the trick. It also loves the moment he is known.
8. Stewardship
  9/10
  The bed, the son, and the hall are handed back, not spent.
The adventures are the part people quote. The story is a man trying to get back to a wife who would not take a substitute, and a son who has had to grow up without him. The suitors eat another man's house and call it their right. The ending says they are wrong.
Then do this. Come home when you said you would. If you cannot, say so before the hour passes.
1908
Anne of Green Gables
79/100
An orphan is given a name, a place, and work. Keep it.
A farm couple ask for a boy to help with the work and are sent a girl. They keep her.
1. Industry
  8/10
  Green Gables is a farm. Anne is expected to become useful, and she does.
2. Household
  9/10
  Matthew and Marilla are not her parents by blood. They become her house anyway.
3. Piety
  7/10
  Church, prayer, and a real apology are ordinary parts of the town.
4. Courage
  7/10
  She stays, she tells the truth after she fails, and she tries again.
5. Republic
  8/10
  Avonlea notices. A neighbor's opinion can be narrow, and it can also be kind.
6. Temperance
  7/10
  Vanity, the dyed hair and the puffed sleeves, is corrected without crushing her.
7. Truth
  8/10
  Her imagination is a gift until it becomes a lie. She learns the difference.
8. Stewardship
  9/10
  She is given a future, and when Marilla needs her, she does not spend it only on herself.
Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert wanted a boy who could work. They got Anne Shirley, who talks too much and has nowhere else to go. They keep her. That decision is the book.
Then do this. Give a child in your house one job that the house actually needs, and notice when it is done.
1847
Jane Eyre
78/100
Conscience costs her the house she wants. She leaves anyway.
A governess will not be kept as a mistress, and she will not live on a lie.
1. Industry
  8/10
  She earns her bread. She will not be dressed and kept.
2. Household
  7/10
  She refuses a marriage that already has a wife. The hidden wife is the bill.
3. Piety
  8/10
  At the altar, and again in the garden, conscience stops her.
4. Courage
  9/10
  She leaves comfort twice, with nowhere safe to go.
5. Republic
  6/10
  The story is a few houses, not a town. Duty is personal and still real.
6. Temperance
  8/10
  She wants him. Wanting him is not allowed to erase the wife upstairs.
7. Truth
  9/10
  Rochester's lie is the crime. She will not share it.
8. Stewardship
  7/10
  She comes back with her own name and her own money, and the child is taught.
Jane Eyre is poor, plain, and clear. Edward Rochester offers her love and a house, and he has not told her he already has a wife. She leaves. The book does not treat this as a tragic loss of passion. It treats it as the minimum a person owes the truth.
Then do this. If you owe someone the truth, say it before you ask them for anything else.
1911
The Secret Garden
73/100
Neglect is the illness. Work in a garden, and a father who returns, are the cure.
A sour girl and a boy who will not leave his bed bring a locked garden, and a father, back to life.
1. Industry
  7/10
  The garden is work. Martha and Dickon already know how to do it.
2. Household
  8/10
  A shut-up house opens. A father comes back to his son.
3. Piety
  6/10
  The 'magic' is attention and growth. Awe is real. A creed is not spelled out.
4. Courage
  7/10
  Mary goes outside. Colin stands up. Both were used to refusing.
5. Republic
  6/10
  A manor and a cottage. The children cross the line the adults keep.
6. Temperance
  8/10
  Spoiling is the sickness. Appetite stops being the ruler.
7. Truth
  7/10
  The locked garden and the hidden boy are secrets that have to be opened.
8. Stewardship
  9/10
  A dead mother's garden is kept, then given to the children who will tend it.
Mary Lennox arrives rude and useless. Colin Craven has been allowed to believe he cannot live. The garden has been locked since his mother died. None of that is fixed by a speech. It is fixed by going outside, by seeds, and by a father who finally walks into the room.
Then do this. Put something in the ground, or in a pot. Let a child be the one who waters it.
1950
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
78/100
A traitor can be bought back. The price is paid by someone else, on purpose.
Four children walk through a wardrobe into a winter that a traitor and a lion will have to answer for.
1. Industry
  5/10
  A war is the reason they are in the house. The book is not about a trade.
2. Household
  8/10
  Four brothers and sisters have to act like a house. The old professor keeps his.
3. Piety
  9/10
  Aslan is not a costume. A law deeper than the witch's winter is the center.
4. Courage
  8/10
  Lucy tells the truth when no one believes her. Peter fights. Edmund comes back.
5. Republic
  8/10
  A kingdom is restored under a law, and a traitor is not shrugged off.
6. Temperance
  8/10
  The Turkish delight is how a child is bought. The sweet is the trap.
7. Truth
  8/10
  Lucy is right and doubted. Edmund lies, and the lie is not charming.
8. Stewardship
  8/10
  They are given a throne to keep, and they give Narnia back when they leave.
Edmund Pevensie sells his brother and sisters for a box of sweets and a promise from a woman who freezes the country. The story does not stop at catching him. Someone else pays what the law requires, and Edmund is taken back.
Then do this. If someone in the house has done wrong, say what it cost. Then say whether they are still yours.
1678
The Pilgrim's Progress
79/100
Every easy path is a trap. The book says so in plain pictures.
A man leaves his city with a burden on his back and will not take the shortcuts.
1. Industry
  6/10
  The work is the walking. It is not a trade, and it does not pretend to be.
2. Household
  6/10
  He leaves his family to start. Later they are on the road too. The leaving is not nothing.
3. Piety
  10/10
  The book is conscience, start to finish. The burden comes off at the cross.
4. Courage
  8/10
  The valley and the fight are there so he can refuse to turn around.
5. Republic
  7/10
  Vanity Fair sells everything, including the truth. The story judges the fair.
6. Temperance
  9/10
  Every shortcut is appetite with a polite name.
7. Truth
  9/10
  The false guides are named. A smooth talker is not a friend.
8. Stewardship
  8/10
  The book is a map for the next person on the same road.
Christian, in John Bunyan's book, lives in the City of Destruction and cannot get the burden off his back by staying comfortable. He leaves. People on the road offer him easier routes. Each one costs more than the hard road would have.
Then do this. Name one easy path you have been taking. Say out loud what it is avoiding.
1719
Robinson Crusoe
68/100
The work is the glory. The lack of a house to go back to is the hole.
A restless son is wrecked alone and has to make a life with his hands. He is not good at needing people.
1. Industry
  10/10
  He makes tools, bread, a shelter, and a calendar. The work is the story.
2. Household
  3/10
  He left his father's house. No marriage matters. Friday is kept as a servant.
3. Piety
  8/10
  After the wreck he reads the Bible and treats the survival as a judgment, not luck.
4. Courage
  8/10
  He stays. He builds. He does not wait to be rescued before he starts.
5. Republic
  5/10
  One man becomes a small king. He learns duty, and he does not learn equality.
6. Temperance
  7/10
  The early wandering is judged. The island forces a limit he would not choose.
7. Truth
  7/10
  The journal includes the failures, the fear, and the bad ideas.
8. Stewardship
  6/10
  He keeps the island, then leaves it. The thing handed on is the lesson, not a household.
Robinson Crusoe is a book about making. Shelter, food, pots, a boat he builds too far from the water. A house can learn from the competence. It should not learn the rest without an argument.
Then do this. Make one thing your house uses. Do not do it alone if someone next to you could learn it.
1884
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
61/100
The conscience is real and badly taught. The last chapters waste the point. Read it awake.
A boy helps a man escape slavery and thinks he is damning himself to do it.
1. Industry
  5/10
  The raft is travel, not a craft. Work is incidental.
2. Household
  4/10
  Pap is a danger. The widow's house is a mixed mercy. Jim is trying to reach a stolen family.
3. Piety
  5/10
  Huck believes helping Jim will send him to hell. He chooses Jim. The town's religion is often a show.
4. Courage
  9/10
  He says he will go to hell rather than turn Jim in. That is the bravest sentence in the book.
5. Republic
  7/10
  A feud, a fraud king, and a law that calls a man property. The boy and the man step outside it.
6. Temperance
  5/10
  The con men are appetite, and the book mocks them. The violence is still thick.
7. Truth
  8/10
  Huck lies to survive. The book tells the truth about what he was taught. The ending plays with Jim's freedom.
8. Stewardship
  6/10
  Jim's freedom is what should be handed on. The last game treats it as a boy's plot.
Huck Finn has been told that a black man is property and that helping him run is a sin. On the river he decides he would rather be damned than send Jim back. The book wants you to see that the boy's training was the lie, and the choice was the truth.
Then do this. Read the chapter where he writes the letter and tears it up. Stop there and talk.
1883
Treasure Island
56/100
Courage is real. The treasure is not a good inheritance, and the rum is not a joke.
A boy, a map, and a crew that will kill for a chest. The charming man is the danger.
1. Industry
  7/10
  A voyage takes seamanship. The map is not magic. Someone still has to sail.
2. Household
  5/10
  Jim's father is weak and then gone. His mother is briefly brave. There is no house at the end.
3. Piety
  4/10
  Men fear dying. Almost nobody reveres anything.
4. Courage
  8/10
  Jim does the dangerous thing when the adults are past doing it.
5. Republic
  6/10
  A ship has a law. Mutiny is the attempt to replace it with whoever is strongest.
6. Temperance
  4/10
  Rum runs the crew. The book often enjoys the swagger.
7. Truth
  6/10
  Long John Silver lies, and the book likes him for it. Jim at least admits when he was afraid.
8. Stewardship
  5/10
  The chest is dug up and spent. Nothing is planted for the next people.
Jim Hawkins is brave. That part is clean. He is also a boy on a ship where the most likable man is a murderer, and the prize at the end is coins that nobody earned. The story knows Silver is dangerous. It still has too much fun with him.
Then do this. Ask which person in the story you would actually trust with a key. Say why.
1697
Cinderella
59/100
The work and the test are worth keeping. The prize is a court, which is thinner than a house.
A girl does the work of a house that hates her. A shoe is a test, not a personality.
1. Industry
  7/10
  She does the housework the others will not do. The work is why she is who she is.
2. Household
  6/10
  A dead mother, a cruel stepmother, sisters as a warning. The marriage is a rescue.
3. Piety
  5/10
  The godmother is wonder. The older telling still carries a mother's care, not a sermon.
4. Courage
  6/10
  She goes to the ball against the house that keeps her down.
5. Republic
  4/10
  The reward is a court, not a town. Rank is the prize.
6. Temperance
  6/10
  Midnight is a limit, and she keeps it.
7. Truth
  7/10
  The shoe fits one person. A claim is tested instead of announced.
8. Stewardship
  6/10
  In the older telling she forgives the sisters. A house is gained. It is not built.
This is the old tale, not a studio picture. Cinderella is the one who works. Her name in the story is an insult for the ash she sleeps in. The ball is not the moral. The moral is that the house has been using her, and a true claim can be tested.
Then do this. Notice who does the unnoticed work in your house. Thank that person before the day ends.

The fairy tales

1756
Beauty and the Beast
71/100
The one fairy tale here that scores like a novel. A promise is kept, and the sisters' greed is not the prize.
A daughter takes her father's place in a beast's house, and she goes back when she said she would.
1. Industry
  6/10
  Beauty does the quiet work of the house. The story is not about a trade.
2. Household
  8/10
  She offers herself in her father's place. The sisters want the riches and not the duty.
3. Piety
  7/10
  She learns to see past a shape. Kindness is a decision, not a spell she casts.
4. Courage
  8/10
  She rides to the beast's house and stays.
5. Republic
  5/10
  One merchant family and one enchanted house. A town is not the point.
6. Temperance
  8/10
  Her sisters' appetite is shown as small. Hers is put second to a promise.
7. Truth
  8/10
  She said she would return. She returns. The beast's shape was never the lie.
8. Stewardship
  7/10
  A father is saved, and a house that was a prison becomes a household.
This is Madame de Beaumont's tale, not a studio picture. Beauty's father takes a rose. The price is one of his daughters. She goes so he does not have to. Later she is allowed to visit home, and she almost stays too long. She goes back because she said she would.
Then do this. Keep one promise this week that nobody is going to remind you about.
1890
The Three Little Pigs
66/100
A short lesson in work. Straw is faster. Brick is what you can hand to someone else.
Two houses fall down. The one built slowly does not.
1. Industry
  9/10
  The whole tale is how well the house was built.
2. Household
  6/10
  Brothers. In the kinder telling, the careful one lets the others in.
3. Piety
  4/10
  No reverence. The rule is practical.
4. Courage
  7/10
  He does not open the door just because the wolf is loud.
5. Republic
  6/10
  A house that holds is a small order. The wolf is force with no right.
6. Temperance
  7/10
  The shortcut, straw and sticks, is the appetite for finishing early.
7. Truth
  6/10
  The wolf pretends. The brick house does not have to believe him.
8. Stewardship
  8/10
  What lasts is the point. A house made in an afternoon is not an inheritance.
The wolf is not the subject. The walls are. Two pigs want to be done. One pig does the slow work. When the danger comes, only the slow work is still there.
Then do this. Finish one job in the house properly, even if a faster version would pass.
1812
Rumpelstiltskin
59/100
A name breaks a bad bargain. The child was never his to trade.
A father's boast sells his daughter into an impossible job. The price of help becomes her child.
1. Industry
  7/10
  Straw into gold is a lie about work. The real work is getting out of a bargain.
2. Household
  6/10
  A father boasts his daughter into danger. The baby is the stake.
3. Piety
  4/10
  No conscience until the mother is about to lose the child.
4. Courage
  6/10
  She has to learn the name. Nobody else will do it.
5. Republic
  4/10
  A mill and a king. The king is a threat, not a law.
6. Temperance
  5/10
  The little man wants a child the way other tales want gold.
7. Truth
  8/10
  The father's lie starts it. The true name ends it.
8. Stewardship
  7/10
  What must not be handed over is the child.
A miller tells a king that his daughter can spin straw into gold. She cannot. A strange man does it for her, and the last price is her first child. The tale is not cute once you say that sentence plainly.
Then do this. Do not promise another person's work, or another person's child.
1812
Hansel and Gretel
56/100
Appetite is the witch's house. The harder fact is that the parents sent them there.
Parents leave two children in the woods. A house made of food is the second trap.
1. Industry
  6/10
  The children have to find their own way back. The candy house is not work.
2. Household
  4/10
  A stepmother talks a father into abandoning his children. The house fails first.
3. Piety
  3/10
  Nobody prays. Survival is the only law in the woods.
4. Courage
  8/10
  Gretel puts the witch into the oven the witch had lit for them.
5. Republic
  4/10
  There is no town. There is a family that will not feed its own.
6. Temperance
  9/10
  The sweets are the bait. Eating the house is how the witch gets them.
7. Truth
  6/10
  The witch pretends to be a kind old woman. The tale does not believe her.
8. Stewardship
  5/10
  They come home. The story is about not being eaten, not about what they will build.
The part people remember is the gingerbread. The part the score has to count is the opening. There is not enough food, and the adults decide the children are what the house can spare. That is a household failing before the witch appears.
Then do this. If the house is short of something, say so. Do not make a child the thing you cut.
1697
Little Red Riding Hood
55/100
The rule is small enough for a child: stay on the path, and do not tell a stranger the house.
A girl leaves the path, tells a wolf where her grandmother lives, and notices the truth too late.
1. Industry
  4/10
  The errand is a small job. The tale is not about work.
2. Household
  6/10
  A mother, a grandmother, and a girl carrying food between them.
3. Piety
  4/10
  No reverence. The rule is a warning, not a prayer.
4. Courage
  5/10
  She is not brave. In the Grimm telling, someone else cuts them out of the wolf.
5. Republic
  5/10
  The path is the village's rule. Leaving it is how the wolf gets the address.
6. Temperance
  8/10
  Straying and talking too much are the faults the tale exists to punish.
7. Truth
  7/10
  The wolf lies in the bed. Her questions come after she has already believed him.
8. Stewardship
  5/10
  Grandmother is saved in one telling and eaten in another. Nothing is planted.
Charles Perrault's girl does not survive. The Brothers Grimm send a hunter. Either way, the mistake is the same. She was told to go straight to her grandmother. She stops, she talks, and she gives a predator the door.
Then do this. Tell a child one rule you actually mean, and what happens if it is broken.
1812
Snow White
55/100
Vanity is the danger. The dwarfs' house is only a pause, not a family.
A woman who cannot bear a younger face tries three times to kill a child. The apple works.
1. Industry
  6/10
  She keeps house for the dwarfs. That is the one piece of ordinary work.
2. Household
  5/10
  A mother is dead. A stepmother wants the girl dead. The dwarfs are shelter, not parents.
3. Piety
  4/10
  The mirror is a rival, not a conscience.
4. Courage
  6/10
  She is hunted. She does not win by fighting. She survives by being warned, and then she forgets.
5. Republic
  5/10
  The dwarfs have an order: do not open the door. She breaks it.
6. Temperance
  7/10
  The queen's appetite to be the fairest is the plot. The apple is how it gets in.
7. Truth
  6/10
  The queen lies three times, as a peddler. The tale never treats the lie as clever.
8. Stewardship
  5/10
  A prince carries her off. The story ends in a court, not in a house she built.
The Grimm telling is not gentle. The queen wants Snow White's lungs and liver. She comes back with laces, a comb, and an apple, and the girl opens the door every time after she was told not to. The dwarfs are right. She does not stay careful.
Then do this. Pick one door in your house that should stay shut, and say why.
1697
Bluebeard
49/100
The murders are the crime. The old tale is more interested in the woman who looked. That is the fault in the tale.
A rich man gives his wife every key but one. The locked room is full of the wives before her.
1. Industry
  4/10
  His wealth is not work. Her test is a key, not a job.
2. Household
  3/10
  The marriage is a trap. Her sister is the one who keeps watch at the door.
3. Piety
  5/10
  A forbidden room is a conscience test. The bodies inside are his, and the tale hurries past that.
4. Courage
  7/10
  She holds the tower until her brothers come. That wait is real.
5. Republic
  4/10
  No town, no law, until brothers with swords arrive.
6. Temperance
  6/10
  Curiosity is what the tale punishes. His appetite for killing is worse, and the tale spends less time on it.
7. Truth
  7/10
  The key stays bloody. The room will not let her hide what she saw.
8. Stewardship
  3/10
  Nothing is left but a fortune taken off a murderer.
Bluebeard tells his wife she may open every door except one. She opens it. The floor is the dead wives. The key will not wipe clean, so he knows. In Perrault, her brothers kill him and she inherits the money.
Then do this. If you tell this one, say who the murderer is before you say who opened the door.
1734
Jack and the Beanstalk
44/100
The lowest tale on this shelf. The story cheers a theft and calls the boy clever.
A boy sells the family cow for beans, climbs into a giant's house, and steals until he is rich.
1. Industry
  5/10
  His mother is poor. He trades away the cow, which was the household's real asset.
2. Household
  5/10
  A widow and her son. He does not ask her before he risks what they have.
3. Piety
  3/10
  No conscience. The giant's wife helps him, and he robs her house anyway.
4. Courage
  7/10
  The climb and the escapes take nerve. Nerve is not the same as a reason.
5. Republic
  3/10
  He takes a harp, a hen, and gold from a house he was fed in. Strength is the only law.
6. Temperance
  4/10
  Magic beans and someone else's gold. The wanting is the plot, and it is rewarded.
7. Truth
  4/10
  He hides, he lies, and the tale treats the lying as the fun.
8. Stewardship
  4/10
  The fortune at the end was stolen. Nothing was built for the people after him.
Jack's mother is angry because he sold the cow. The rest of the story tells the child not to worry, because the beans were magic and the giant deserved to be robbed. Some tellings say the giant stole the goods first. The tale a child usually hears does not. It says Jack is clever.
Then do this. After you tell it, ask whether Jack had a right to the hen. Accept the answer the child actually gives.

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