Customer Reviews

Arthur, It's Only Rock 'n' Roll

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It's the popular children's series, "Arthur," and here come the Backstreet Boys. Uh oh. What's going on? The Backstreet Boys? Arthur's sold out, right? What better way to pander to today's audience, eh?

The thing is, selling out, or rather, not selling out, is actually an important theme of this book. When Francine finds her friend Muffy Crosswire watching the Backstreet Boys, she calls them "sellouts," saying that they're only interested in money. She then creates her own band, based on the theme of not selling out. Things, however, begin to fall apart when Francine begins to suspect her band members of only being in it for the money. Then, the Backstreet Boys come and teach everybody a lesson about the appreciation of music.

So, it would seem that the book version of the Backstreet Boys "Arthur" special does not overdose on the Backstreet Boys, featuring them mainly towards the end of the story. The illustrations are of the same brilliant, vibrant quality I've come to expect from the Arthur series and are pleasant to look at just in themselves. This book is definitely recommended...

I have been a fan of Arthur books ever since I began reading. This is a cute story that well illustrates that making music is truly about the music,not about the profits.
Francine,the resident tomboy of the group, is tired of her friend Muffy swooning over the Backstreet Boys. She decides to form her own group that won't be "sellouts." Her band,named U Stink,quickly becomes the hot local ticket. Francine gets irritated at her bandmates for wanting to do interviews and sell cds while Muffy conspires to become the new manager for the Backstreet Boys when they come to town. By the time the Boys come to town,the members of U Stink are all at odds with each other while Arthur and a couple of his friends rejected by Francine form a band called We Stink. At the concert,Muffy traps Nick Carter in an elevator and gives him a sales pitch. While waiting for Carter,U Stink is sent onstage to play a song but freezes. Then U Stink gets some help from the Boys to finish out the song. Afterword,the members of both "Stink" bands become friends again and Francine realizes that the BSB are about having fun while making music and that they aren't "sellouts"
Cute book recommended for Arthur and BSB fans of all ages!

3 5-star ratings? Are you kidding me?! This book is awful, awful, awful.

Now that I've read the description, I understand that it was adapted from a teleplay and maybe that accounts for some of the stilted writing, but this is not at all the quality of writing I've come to expect from Marc Brown. In fact, I would have guessed that he had some contractural obligation to write this and deliberately put almost no effort into making it even remotely enjoyable.

There are plenty of other Arthur books that I enjoy (despite the fact that he does not look at all like an aardvark, which is allegedly is), but this one has got to go before my kid asks me to read it again.

I loved this book! it is about Muffy telling Francine that the Backstreet Boys are sellouts. Soon we see her starting a band called "YOU STINK!" Even Arthur and his friends start a band called "WE STINK!" I thought that the book was great... It deals with crushes, and what it may be like to be in a band...

After reading the other review where this person called the Backstreet Boys Passe really should go and listen to their CDs.. They have been around for 10 years.. It took the book and the DVD of this show to prove to me that these kids were great...

It even took a concert to show Muffy that the Backstreet Boys were not sellouts... Great book!

For the age that this book is written for, it is really a well written story. The pictures are incredible, and the dialogue is great. The Backstreet Boys rule!

marc brown is scraping the bottom of the barrel with wafer-thin plots for the humanoid/aardvark arthur and his gang... consider this book a big waste of your time.... not even the guest appearance of a passe boy band can redeem it... (although perhaps if new edition or the jackson five had been included instead.....)