The title has two associations. One is an insulting way to call attention to another's ignorance, and the other is the Jack of the Jack Tales, traditional tales that originated in Great Britain and were sustained for centuries deep in the Appalachian Mountains. This book illuminates both the Jack Tales, and ideas on overcoming ignorance. The author, Kevin D. Cordi, grew up in West Virginia, often regaled by traditional storytellers, including his own mother. For 27 years he has been a professional story-teller, for 11 years he taught high school, and now he is an education professor at Ohio Northern University. This book chronicles his path from a person who saw teaching and storytelling as separate endeavors to a person who has thought long and hard and in a very practical way about how best to integrate story-telling into the educational enterprise. The Press places this book in three very often mutually exclusive categories: “folklore / performing arts / pedagogy.”
Jackson: The University Press of Mississippi, 2019. 222 pages with References and an Index. Trade paperback.