Disney's Read to Me Treasury Volume Three
Written: Jul 21 '04 (Updated Jul 22 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to read, full page illustration in oversized book. Recent movies.
Cons: Mediocre recent movie material. Monsters, Inc. is painted and not CG.
The Bottom Line: Buy this to fill out your collection or if you like the movies contained inside. Otherwise, don't waste your money.
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| dhandforth's Full Review: |
The Disney’s Read to Me Treasury has been a real bargain for parents in the habit of reading to their kids. Six stories each on sixty five oversized pages of illustrations using scenes and animation from the original hit movies.
The first two volumes (links at the end of this review) were terrific.
Sadly, this third volume ran out of gas. This time around, with the single exception of “Dinosaur”, the stories have a much more bargain bin feel. In contrast with its predecessors, “recent Disney releases” seems to be the unifying theme to these stories. It’s like the marketing department took over control of this project.
THE STORIES:
These oversized hardcover picture book features six stories from Disney/Pixar’s best-selling animated films. Volume Two contains:
Monsters, Inc., retold by Catherine Hapka
Atlantis the Lost Empire, retold by Catherine Hapka
The Tigger Movie Story, retold by Ellen Teitlebaum
Dinosaur, retold by Julie Michaels
102 Dalmatians, retold by Zoe Benjamin, and
The Emperor’s New Groove, retold by Natalye Abuan
The stories are concisely re-told in full color. The text is geared for eight to nine year old readers. Three of the stories (The Tigger Movie Story, Atlantis the Lost Empire, The Emperor’s New Groove) use illustrations taken from the animated movie. 𣺞 Dalmatians” tells the story using photo stills from the 2000 Glenn Close movie. “Dinosaur” uses the computer graphics from the movies. “Monsters, Inc.” uses illustrations redrawn from the computer graphics. One supposes that Pixar ixnayed reprinting the computer graphics.
The plots follows the movie’s storyline fairly closely, not missing much. Each story is around 65 pages long. The stories are more picture than text driven and so no page has more than fifty words on it. The words are easy to read. A typical excerpt might read in big print (this one is from The Tigger Movie story):
Now Roo had a new idea: the friends would pretend to be Tigger’s long-lost family! They all painted on stripes and practiced their bouncing.
Almost every illustration covers a full page. More than a quarter of the illustrations spread over two pages. The retold story is easy enough for my seven year old to read to my two year old.
Like the first two Volumes, the editors have included a short introduction with tips to parents on how to read aloud to children. The stories are divided into upto four chapters, so that parents can stop the story when children fall asleep or wander off.
THE ILLUSTRATIONS
In the first two Volumes of this series, this is the best part of these books. The pictures are big enough that parents can tell the stories without reading the words.
Like the first two volumes, the illustrations use the same pictures that the kids see on the video or DVD. This makes it easier for them to picture the story in their heads.
The qualities of the pictures are mixed. The cartoons are typically Disney terrific. The photos in 𣺞 Dalmatians” look really cheesy and really don’t do much to help tell the stories. The CG for “Dinosaur” are lush and interesting to look at. Even the cartoons for Monsters, Inc. look individually painted. The pictures match scenes from the movie.
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The heavy book cover has pictures from the six stories. Younger kids can just point to the story that they want to hear.
The stories and strikingly colored with vivid pictures and dynamic scenes. The final scene in the Tigger Movie story, for example, shows a brave Tigger and Roo as they leap about rescuing their friends. The reader can almost see the avalanche sliding by
Theoretically, the little details in the pictures would keep kids coming back to revisit their favorite scenes. My daughter loves Tigger and Pooh. But my son found only “Dinosaur” marginally interesting
THE CRITIQUE
With the incredibly rich vein of Disney cartoons, this volume’s poor story selection couldn’t have been for lack of material. Except for “Monsters, Inc.” and maybe “Dinosaur”, none of the stories could qualify as huge hits.
Who knows why this book has such lame stories? Maybe the first two volumes did not sell as well as expected, and the editors panicked an put in newer stuff. Or maybe these stories were so poorly attended at theaters that the marketing department worried that they could not sell these stories individually, so why not package them all together in one volume as a value proposition. Substitute quantity for quality.
One limitation of this format not in the previous two volumes became fairly obvious in this book. The recently released movies all had big action-filled climaxes, like the lab bottle scene in “The Emperor’s New Groove”, or the volcano scene in “Atlantis the Lost Empire”. Unfortunately, these action sequences translate poorly in 50 words or less. The climactic page from “Atlantis the Lost Empire” reads:
Milo flew up toward the flaming balloon and climbed aboard. Rourke tried to hit Milo with an ax, but he struck Kida’s crystal pod instead. Milo picked up a piece of the glowing crystal and cut Rourke’s arm. The commander crystallized and crumbled into ashes. But Atlantis was still in danger---the volcano was about to erupt!
That’s it for a five minute action sequence in the movie. The picture just has a picture of Rourke as a crystalline figure.
With simpler stories like “Cinderella” or “Snow White” in the first two volumes, this abbreviated climactic scene was not such a big deal. In these stories, they short change the ending.
Both of my children are voracious readers. They spent hours reading the first two volumes of this series. However, they showed little interest in this book. Perhaps this demonstrates that mediocre movies do not make great books, even if packaged in quantity.
Still, this series has been a tremendous value and a great find for us. At less than $20 for six stories spread over 400 pages, my kids get hours of reading and fun from flipping through these books. Don’t pay more than a few bucks for this one, though.
Buy this book if you liked the movies. Except for Monsters, Inc., all the other books tied into the original movies covered here would cost a lot more to buy individually. In Monsters, Inc.’s case, buy the movie tie in if you want to get the movie graphics.
BITS AND BOBS
Disney’s Read to Me Treasury Volume Three has no age recommendations. It is for children of all ages: particularly if they are between 2 and 8.
The book is written by five authors and the illustrations and graphics are a mix of painted illustrations, animation stills, computer graphics, or photo shots from the original motion pictures. .
Disney Press published this 400 page hardcover book in 2002. It sells for a cover price of $19.99 US and $27.99 CAN.
ISBN: 078683380-7
Links to other books in this series:
Disney’s Read to Me Treasury Volume One
Disney’s Read to Me Treasury Volume Two
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
dhandforth
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Member: Dean Handforth
Location: Pasadena, CA
Reviews written: 103
Trusted by: 35 members
About Me:
"Those who would trade liberty for security will have neither..." James Madison
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