Customer Reviews

The Cranky Day and other Thomas the Tank Engine Stories (Thomas & Friends) (Pictureback(R))

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

 

 

Back in 1993, 4, and leading up to 6, Random House published about 5 or 7 pictureback books from the Thomas series, from the era of Ringo Starr narrating. The main difference between those books and "The Cranky Day" is quite disappointing. "The Cranky Day" (which is even titled wrong. [Cranky Bugs]) is written straight from the vhs tape, as if the closed captioning was copied and pasted into a book. Nothing is explained, and I am not exaggerating. If you haven't seen any of these stories yet, you'll be very, VERY confused when you hear the dialect of an engine say "LOOK OUT!" or, "DON'T MOVE", then to see an image, of what might be happening, with no reasonable explaination given. There never is a sentence in the book saying: "Percy had helped lift Cranky up with a rope, but foolishly forgot to detach it." or something with reason. Overall, it's still an okay book. but I am disappointed that Random House copied straight from the tape...yuck!

Please don't confuse this Read To Me series with other Thomas the Tank books. For instance, Catch me, Catch me is called a Pictureback Reader, and although it is meant for 4 or 5 year olds to learn how to read, my 21 month old loves it--the extremely simple text is all her attention span can take. The Cranky Day, however, has a lot of writing and is meant for the longer attention spans of 3 or 4 plus year olds. I don't like the tiny photos for pictures where the text takes up just as much room as the photos, and I agree with another reviewer that the photos are dark. The full page drawings in Catch Me Catch Me are much better, as are the simplistic drawings in Thomas the Tank Engines Big Blue Treasury. Depends upon the age of the child I guess, when it comes to selecting Thomas books!

While my three year old son recognizes his favorite Thomas characters, this book is poorly written and edited. The first story, "Cranky Bugs" is especially annoying because little sensitivity was used to match the pictures with the text. It is bad enough that the text is taken straight from the video tape, but some editing would greatly improve the stories. How sad that the Britt Allcroft empire has reduced the original, wonderful stories from Rev. Awdry to such rubbish.

Most of these stories don't flow naturally. Story points jump around. And the pictures too often don't go with the story being told. Many of these "read to me" books will have something a bit off, but this is the worst offender.

THE CRANKY DAY is made up of three stories: Cranky Bugs, Put-Upon Percy, and Lady Hatt's Birthday Party. This inexpensive paperback is perfect for the Thomas fan. It has the colorful photographic "illustrations" that look like the series we're familiar with. This one is REALLY popular with my Thomas fans, and you can read the stories one at a time or all three at once. But beware -- when you're finished they're going to want you to read it again! and again! and again!

This book contains 3 stories from the fifth series of Thomas the tank engine & friends.These 3 stories are titled 'Cranky Bugs','Put Upon Percy',and 'Lady Hatt's Birthday Party'.