Customer Reviews

Gigi, God's Little Princess: Gigi's Hugest Announcement

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had a hard time knowing how to rate this. My daughter (2.5 years) loves this DVD and requests to watch it over and over again. My husband and I, on the other hand, have a love-hate relationship with Princess Gigi. The animation and voices are not the best, and they are actually quite annoying in some places. I've come close to sending Gigi off to live at a different house just so I won't have to put up with her anymore! Looking strictly at the production and quality of the DVD, I would give it two stars.

However... I do love the underlying message, which has been communicated quite effectively to my daughter. Without any prompting or encouragement from us, it's been ingrained in her that she is God's little princess, just like Gigi. Looking strictly at the content and message, I would give this four stars.

When we were sent Gigi's Hugest Announcement to review for Thomas Nelson Publishers I was ecstatic. Okay, that *might* just be an overstatement, but I was very excited.

You see, here was an opportunity to preview a children's DVD that was a good match for our religious beliefs and personal values.

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I believe that all people are children of our Father in Heaven and want to help my children understand their very special heritage as children of God.

In this DVD that message is reinforced in a fun and entertaining way.

The two stories included in Gigi's Hugest Announcement are The Royal Tea Party and The Pink Ballerina.

In The Royal Tea Party our main character, Gigi, wants to share with her best friend, Frances, the news that Frances is also a royal princess. Gigi feels an urgency to share with Frances the message that she is also a child of God. We watch as Gigi brainstorms different ways to tell Frances this important news. Gigi finally settles upon the right method to share this extremely important news with Frances and that method is a royal tea party.

In The Pink Ballerina we follow Gigi from a Sunday morning after Sunday School and throughout the day as she ponders and thinks about her weekly memory verse. She only has half of the verse, though, and misinterprets Psalm 149:3. She focuses only on the dance and doesn't yet know about the music in the latter half of the verse. Gigi is eager to praise the Lord through dance, but learns that dance isn't her strongest talent. In the end she learns that we all have differing talents and can praise the Lord in our own unique ways.

The DVD is based upon stories by Sheila Walsh and the producers use a style of animation that reminds me of book illustrations. The scenes move more slowly than some other animation styles and I prefer that. There isn't the bright flash and movement of some animation styles that can overwhelm and overstimulate our children.

This a DVD that I can highly recommend for all families!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their [...] book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255 : "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Gigi is a little girl who thinks she is a princess. I like that rather than being any old princess, she chooses to be God's princess. Her messages are simple but positive. We all belong to God. We each have our own special talents.
This video was cute. I think it is just O.K., but my 2 year old daughter loves Gigi and asks to see this video almost every day. Even my sons enjoy it, though they will never admit that! I'm glad there are videos like this for my children to watch. I will by another Gigi video for my daughter if she ever requests it. I think girls can use all the positive messages they can get.

(I received a free copy of this DVD to review from [...])

Obviously movie this thrilled my 6 year old girl, and even my boys sat through it without any argument. It is very girly and pink and full of tea parties, ballerinas and everything feminine. Gigi is sweet, and loves her best friend and wants her to know all that she knows. She knows she's a princess, because she is a child of God, but she is not a bratty princess at all, which is a point I really like. She loves her friends and her cat and lives a lot in her imagination.
Gigi has big ideas, and they do not ever go according to her plans, but at the end of the day she knows that God loves her no matter how many mistakes she makes or how clutzy she is. The animation is not fantastic, but it is watchable. The stories are based on the books by Sheila Walsh, and my daughter now wants the books too. There are two stories included on the DVD and they both have a great meaning and sweetness to them.
I would recommend this movie to my friends for their little girls, it teaches them good lessons while making it fun.

I watched Gigi's Hugest Announcement with my 3-year-old daughter and she absolutely loved it. From her perspective, it was great. She especially loved that Gigi was so klutzy. "She falls all the time, just like me!" she said, laughing.

This DVD actually has two episodes, both of which have a Biblical "moral to the story". (The stories are based off books by Sheila Walsh, a trusted name in Christian books.) The moral to each story is very simple, yet very applicable even to me as an adult. I enjoyed watching a cartoon in which the children and parents conduct themselves in a godly manner.

I also appreciated the way they handled the princess theme. Gigi is a princess because she is a child of God (the King of Kings), but she doesn't act spoiled or uppity. She understands how important her role as "princess" is; after all, bringing glory to God really IS a royal duty. :)

The quality of the animation was sub-par, to be sure, but my daughter could have cared less. Also, after watching it several times with my daughter, I find myself feeling irritated with her voice. It doesn't bother my daughter though, as she requests to watch it every day.

Disclosure: I received this DVD free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their [...] book review program. All opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone.

Thanks to my Thomas Nelson/BookSneeze membership, my family received a complimentary copy Gigi's Hugest Announcement. I have to say that the concept, writing and overall story are absolutely great! My children with ages ranging from 10 years to 3 years all enjoyed the movie and seemed to learn the valuable Christian lessons aimed towards them. That part was wonderful! But the voice of Gigi did sometimes get on everyone's nerves. Not so much the sound of her voice, just the way she says some of her words was a bit annoying. I understand she is God's Little Princess but it was a little extreme at times. :0)

The DVD itself is very cute though and my children all sat right through it so I'm giving it an actual 4.5. (If I could)

My girls were thrilled to get this DVD from Thomas Nelson - they really enjoy the God's Little Princess items from Sheila Walsh so this was sort of like icing on the cake. Pink and frilly Gigi is God's little princess and wants to share the news with her friend and neighbor but things keep falling apart. She is finally able to do what she knows God would want her to do. In the second title Gigi leans about God wanting us to show love to others.


I'll admit I was a bit bored with this movie but my girls were very much into it - par for the course in this house. I will say neither I, my husband or my oldest daughter thought the use of lord toward Gigi's cat was correct - considering the nature of the DVD - God. This did lead to us discussing the fact that we don't call others lords and there is only one Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, even though Sarah did call Abraham lord in the Old Testament.

Gigi, God's Little Princess, is a happy child who loves to laugh sing and knows God loves her. When I first put in the video my child started to smile and noticed the clouds in the video and started to dance to the opening song. The story Gigi's Hugest Announcement, has wonderful stories which viewers can learn life's lessons through biblical scripture. At the end of each story a biblical quote is discussed as the moral of the story. The narrator summarizes the story with pictures from the book, which is a nice touch. The bonus/extras section is very interactive - including sing-along songs and trivia game. A wonderful video for parents and children to watch together as a family.

Gigi's Hugest Announcement is a cute DVD featuring two cartoons based on Sheila Walsh's Gigi books--The Royal Tea Party and The Pink Ballerina.

In addition to these animated cartoons, there are lots of nice extras--a 10 question multiple choice quiz, FOUR read-alongs from four full-length books (Will, God's Mighty Warrior; Gigi, God's Little Princess; The Perfect Christmas Gift; The Royal Tea Party), three how-to drawing tutorials (an animator draws Gigi and Lord Fluffy, then shows how to draw a simplified cat on your own) a Sing-a-Long and several trailers.

The animation is unusual, but fascinating to watch--I haven't seen anything quite like it. Even my son was interested in it and watched them all the way through, as well as the Bonus Features. He even sang along, but substituted "Prince" for "Princess". :o)

The DVD-ROM features don't work on my computer, which is odd (I have Windows Vista and a 2009 Gateway PC). This means that I couldn't find the Wallpapers anywhere when I clicked to download (there's supposedly 8 of them), nor the Screensaver. However, the four coloring pages--delivered via Adobe--came out just fine.

Gigi is, well, prissy, as one might expect a Princess to be. But she has wild hair and calls herself "average", which tempers the constant assertion she's a "Princess". The Pink Ballerina cartoon is especially funny when Gigi gets a verse in Sunday School about dance...and wonders if a square dance or Riverdance would be a great performance for "the King".

This DVD is produced for Christians, so of course there's the "I'm special because I belong to God" element, and the Will story talks about "the devil"--so as long as you're OK with that, you'll be good to go. We aren't Christians in our house (at least, not traditional ones--we view things more symbolically/metaphorically), so I explained to my son what we believe. At least Gigi reminds kids that they're special for who they are, not what they do--"warts" (or in Gigi's case, freckles) and all.

Entertaining and cute, especially the second cartoon. Sheila Walsh reads all four stories, so it was interesting to hear this "blast from the past" (I used to be a Pentecostal minister and Sheila was big in the 80s). However, Lord Fluffy, the cat, is said to be a girl--so I'm confused at the how "Lord" title (my son called it a "movie mistake" LOL).

-- Janet Boyer, author of Back in Time Tarot

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this DVD free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

This DVD includes 2 fully-animated Gigi videos based on books by Sheila Walsh. The Royal Tea Party features Gigi and her best friend Frances. Gigi learns the lesson that she isn't the only "God's Little Princess." In The Pink Ballerina, Gigi and Frances take their first ballet lesson. Gigi is sure that they will be the best ballerinas in the class. She learns that she doesn't have to be a perfect ballerina to make God proud.

This was our first Gigi book or video. I love the actual book images shown at the beginning of the video. And the animation is very appealing and appropriate too. Each video is only about 15 minutes and perfect for the short attention span of little ones! My almost-5-year-old daughter said that the "stories were very sweet." I particularly enjoyed The Pink Ballerina and Gigi's dad's little lesson on being Godly. I really appreciated the level of Bible teaching.