Editors of Phoenix International Publications

review of
Star Wars Sound Storybook Treasury
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 20, 2021

I 1st saw "Star Wars" in a movie theater when it came out in 1977. This was before multiplexes so it was BIG SCREEN. I was tripping on LSD & I loved it. I saw it again when I was 'sober' (or, at least, not tripping) soon thereafter & hated it. I've since stuck closer to the latter judgment. Despite that, how cd I resist picking up this bk at a thrift store? It has 39 sounds activated by pressing show more buttons w/ images on them. I love sound effects so I basically got this to use as a (M)Usical instrument.

The 3 stories included in the bk are written for kids in a very simple style w/ the text interspersed w/ the sound effects buttons' images to tell the reader when to press them for the sounds to add to the narration. I wish I cd afford to publish a bk like this. &/OR I wish that there were more bks like this based on subjects of more interest to me such as 20th century avant-garde classical music. THAT wd be truly fantastic. Even a sci-fi bk other than Star Wars, Star Trek, & Dune wd be nice - something by Philip K. Dick might even sell. Who knows? Maybe there's already something out there that I don't know about.. but I doubt it. Star Wars has a level of popularity that can support such impressive production but I doubt that very much else wd - maybe a bk about the Steelers w/ the voices of famous football players. Dunno.

Things like this didn't exist when I was a child, we made bone flutes out of the remains of trapped animals & competing humans. Thinking about that, I decided to shop for a bk like this that might come w/ a more sanitary femur-shaped breath controller or drum stick. I didn't find anything like that but I did find a slew of other interactive sound bks that I might be able to use as an instrument so I bought one about animals w/ 27 sound buttons. I was going to get one that claimed to have over 100 sounds but it only had 20 buttons so I wasn't quite sure how that wd work. Anyway, it's good for ages 0 to 3 so when I die I reckon I'll be back to 0 again so maybe I can take this w/ me. show less

I love this picture book ! The illustrations are humorous, colorful and beautiful, and the text is unexpected and fun ! This ABC book is really original : each alphabet letter presents, not only a musical instrument, but also an animal. Each animal is super cute, and plays an instrument, some well known, like a guitar or a piano, some more rare, like a yueqin or an ipu.

A book perfect for young animal and music lovers !

Minimally, include all the pups, not an arbitrary smattering, and include sounds for each, not some. Children are often tiny obsessive-compulsives, more so I think than their elders, and also have a fierce sense of fairness, and this book fails on both counts.

There are a lot of words in this book so it's not practical to think that a child will attempt to sit and read it.

Children will enjoy this book because of the familiarity and popularity of Elmo as well as the fun with pushing the buttons and playing sounds.

This book can be used to encourage children to try using the potty. I have had success with reading the story while my daughter is sitting on her potty. She is much less resistant to sit on her new potty when she has this added show more distraction/incentive.

Children will likely enjoy pushing the buttons over and over which adds to the child's attraction to the book. show less