Once there was a giant out hoeing his cabbages…"
The early part of this story rests on a weird twist. The giant hurts his foot with the hoe, and assumes that he's cut off his toe, but somehow in the garden instead is a tiny toe-sized person. The giant's original plan was to sew the toe back onto his foot, so he'd kept it in his lunchbox. But when he opens it up later, he discovers the toe has eaten the pie he'd brought for lunch!
"Toes don't eat pies," the giant grumbles.
"I was hungry," the "toe" replies…
The illustrations for "The Giant's Toe" tip off the reader that it's really a toe-sized little boy. And author-illustrator Brock Cole seems to be thinking of W. C. Fields when he draws the giant. There's a big red noses and a flat straw hat - but most of all, the white-haired giant just looks grumpy. This makes the little boy even more sympathetic - and he looks especially innocent since he isn't wearing any clothes!
"You don't know how a toe ought to behave," the giant says with a humph, "and I'm going to do away with you." He plans to put the boy in a pie, and actually fills a pie crust with vegetables, tucks the little boy inside - and then heads out to collect firewood. Fortunately a greedy hen pecks a hole in the pie crust, and soon the boy and the hen have traded places. "Toe pie must be wonderful," the giant thinks when he's started the baking. But then he spots the toe setting the table with silverware.
"What are you doing?" asks the giant.
"I'm helping," the toe replies.
It sounds a little creepy, though technically that's the tradition that you'd see in old-fashioned fairy tale. And Cole's illustrations keep the story bright, with careful ink sketches neatly filled in with bright colors - always appearing on a white background. It's also nice that he's written a new story about a giant, keeping all the old-fashioned tension while adding a modern lightness. It's funny to see the crotchety old giant, breaking his gravy boats and plates in frustration when he discovers he's cooked the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Soon there's an appearance by the harp that sings all by itself - so you start to suspect that this is the same giant who lives at the top of the beanstalk that was visited by Jack. And just then, a "mean-looking" boy appears at the gate, demanding that the giant hand over his precious egg-laying hen. "Too late," says the toe. "We ate her." Jack's plan had been to "chop up the giant," but the toe convinces him to go somewhere else instead.
And after that, the giant and the toe became the best of friends…