Jack and the Green Man

Jack o' Hearts is the top card player in the parish and is feeling pretty sure of himself. When a mysterious green stranger challenges him to a card game with stakes higher than high—well, Jack can't resist. Sure, he's never lost a tournament yet, has he?

Jack is as saucy as saucy can be and he's twice as lucky as that—but the game is trickier than it looks. Luckily, Jack finds he's got an ace up his sleeve: the menacing green man's beautiful daughter Ann. She's got as much magic as her father (or so that enchantment crowd says), and she likes the look of Jack.

This hilarious re-imagining of the traditional Newfoundland tale "The Head Card Player of the World" is jam-packed with magic, romance, transformations, impossible tasks, unforgettable characters, a country tune or two, and the ever-present threat of Jack's head ending up on a spear.

A brilliant and hilarious blending of folklore, high literature and pop culture, Jack and the Green Man is Andy Jones and Darka Erdelji's most ambitious and riotous Jack tale yet. Divided into twelve short chapters, this long-form, gorgeously illustrated storybook will delight readers and listeners of all ages.

A native of Slovenia, Darka Erdelji received a Masters of Arts in Puppet Scenography from Prague's Akadmie Muzickych Umeni. She lived in St. John's for several years; during that time, she began collaborating with Andy Jones, first on their puppet play "The Queen of Paradise's Garden", and then on their acclaimed series of illustrated Jack tales. Darka currently lives in Maribor, Slovenia, and designs puppets for Lutkovno Gledalis'e Maribor, a state-of-the-art puppet theatre housed in a renovated medieval monastery. She has illustrated books in Canada and Slovenia.