The gentle narratives and highlighted subtitles make these great learn-to-read stories.
The Caterpillar and the Polliwog (1982) is even gentler than these pretty low-key Henkes tales. In it, a bragging caterpillar makes the rounds at the pond, telling everyone, "When I grow up I'm going to turn into something else." Most of the creatures get mildly annoyed--all except for Polliwog, who thinks the concept super. Then a fish tells him he's going to turn into something else too, and he gets even more excited. Let's do it together, he says. You first. And as he watches the cocoon that the caterpillar spins, he doesn't seem to notice his own body changing. When she emerges as a butterfly, he's delighted to discover he's now a frog. No come-uppance here, and no real embedded moral. Just a quaint tale by popular children's book author Jack Kent, narrated by Ruis Woertendyke and Melissa Leebaert.
Video:
As with the other DVDs in this series, the video quality is very good. Presented in 1.33:1 aspect ratio, the stories feature bright primary colors and a minimum of graininess. Most of the illustrations are drawn with bold lines, and cross-hatched in spots to add texture, all of which looks pleasing enough.
Audio:
The audio is a Dolby Digital 2.0, which delivers a clear, distortion-free soundtrack that has a pleasant-enough balance of bass and treble. No complaints here.
Extras:
As is customary, the extras are bonus stories:
Hondo & Fabian i a weak entry for any collection because it's such a quiet story that doesn't have a narrative or visual interest that really lends itself to animation. I'm surprised Weston Woods even took this one on. It's more a sweet story that grandma would read while her own cat slept on a cushion nearby, with Mr. Roger's pacing and tone. Adventurous? Hardly. Even compared to the relatively gentle Henkes stories, it's a yawner. The drawings are so much rougher-looking too, and the colors duller that I can't picture any pre-schoolers requesting repeat plays--especially when there are no subtitles to help young readers develop their vocabulary.
Mouse Around is considerably stronger. In fact, it's one of the best live-action stories I've seen in the Weston Woods/Scholastic series. Don't look for logic, because there is none. And don't look for grand adventure or humor, because this one is as gentle as the rest of the tales on this disc. But if you've read "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" to your little one, you'll recognize the same one-thing-leads-to-another approach to this tale about a little mouse who starts out in the basement of one house, and then (like that popular "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" book) everything comes full-circle. No one seems to notice this mouse as he hitches a ride in a plumber's belt, leaves the house in a couple of donuts the boy grabs, then gets tossed in a rolled-up newspaper on the boy's route, eventually gets shot out of a model rocket at the park, and finally gets a ride on a woman's hat who visits the same house from which his adventure began. It's weird that only one person seems to notice the mouse, but it's a high-quality film that still looks relatively contemporary despite the Norman Rockwell approach.
Bottom Line:
As Scholastic Storybook Treasures videos go, this one is pretty solid, but because of the gentle narratives and the focus on females in several stories, it probably won't be a big hit with your rock-'em sock-'em little boys. But girls in the 1-6 age range might go for these. The gentle narratives and highlighted subtitles make these great learn-to-read stories.
Video:
As with the other DVDs in this series, the video quality is very good. Presented in 1.33:1 aspect ratio, the stories feature bright primary colors and a minimum of graininess. Most of the illustrations are drawn with bold lines, and cross-hatched in spots to add texture, all of which looks pleasing enough.
Audio:
The audio is a Dolby Digital 2.0, which delivers a clear, distortion-free soundtrack that has a pleasant-enough balance of bass and treble. No complaints here.
Extras:
As is customary, the extras are bonus stories:
Hondo & Fabian i a weak entry for any collection because it's such a quiet story that doesn't have a narrative or visual interest that really lends itself to animation. I'm surprised Weston Woods even took this one on. It's more a sweet story that grandma would read while her own cat slept on a cushion nearby, with Mr. Roger's pacing and tone. Adventurous? Hardly. Even compared to the relatively gentle Henkes stories, it's a yawner. The drawings are so much rougher-looking too, and the colors duller that I can't picture any pre-schoolers requesting repeat plays--especially when there are no subtitles to help young readers develop their vocabulary.
Mouse Around is considerably stronger. In fact, it's one of the best live-action stories I've seen in the Weston Woods/Scholastic series. Don't look for logic, because there is none. And don't look for grand adventure or humor, because this one is as gentle as the rest of the tales on this disc. But if you've read "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" to your little one, you'll recognize the same one-thing-leads-to-another approach to this tale about a little mouse who starts out in the basement of one house, and then (like that popular "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" book) everything comes full-circle. No one seems to notice this mouse as he hitches a ride in a plumber's belt, leaves the house in a couple of donuts the boy grabs, then gets tossed in a rolled-up newspaper on the boy's route, eventually gets shot out of a model rocket at the park, and finally gets a ride on a woman's hat who visits the same house from which his adventure began. It's weird that only one person seems to notice the mouse, but it's a high-quality film that still looks relatively contemporary despite the Norman Rockwell approach.
Bottom Line:
As Scholastic Storybook Treasures videos go, this one is pretty solid, but because of the gentle narratives and the focus on females in several stories, it probably won't be a big hit with your rock-'em sock-'em little boys. But girls in the 1-6 age range might go for these. The gentle narratives and highlighted subtitles make these great learn-to-read stories.
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