Customer Reviews

We Three Kings

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

 

 

Russian born Gennady Spirin is one of the most gifted, imaginative artists working today. His illustrations are lush, rich, intricately detailed from the largest image to the smallest accouterment. Looking at some of the 30 books he has illustrated, it is as though one is looking at fine art. In fact, his works are found in private collections as well as museums throughout the world.

Mr. Spirin's awards are numerous - four gold medals from the Society of Illustrators, the Golden Apple from the Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava, and first prize at both the Bologna and Barcelona International Book Fairs.

First written in 1857 We Three Kings is one of our most beloved Christmas carols as it tells of the wise men's journey to visit the manger in Bethlehem. Done in watercolor and colored pencils, Mr. Spirin's paintings for this carol appear bathed in a golden light. All are full page and exquisitely wrought, an illustrated edition of this traditional Christmas song which is sure to become a family keepsake.

- Gail Cooke

The illustrations are beautiful but I was disappointed to see that the chorus page is repeated five times. When I say repeated, I mean the exact 2-page illustration is repeated, not just the chorus words. So every other page you turn, you see the exact page you saw 20 seconds earlier. It's a short book (20 pages of story content) and when half of the pages are repeats, it makes it even shorter. My children were confused and kept saying "we already saw that." I probably wouldn't have bought it if I had seen it beforehand.

The words are simple from the song of "We Three Kings." The book is beautifully illustrated! My kids love it.

The illustrations are beautiful and the book covers the entirety of the song, with one page for each of the 5 verses, plus a repeated "chorus" page. They do not compress "Frankincense" and "Myrhh" into one verse, as some recordings do. Then at the end there is the sheet music and all the lyrics on one page. One small issue - I had always sang "guide us to that perfect sight", but in this book, we are being guided "to thy perfect light". Perhaps that is more correct?

My son went through a two-month phase of being completely obsessed with the song "We Three Kings." He learned to play it on the piano, memorized all the verses, and sang it CONSTANTLY. Constantly. His kindergarten teacher was grateful when he shifted over to obsessing about roadrunners, although she is starting to tire of them lately (go figure).

We have spent many hours at the library tracking down any sort of Christmas story with the kings pictured. This one has the best illustrations. The text is just the song, but the illustrations are so detailed that it slows my kiddo down for a few minutes. The book even has the music and verses printed at the back.

The refrain pages repeat. Beautiful artwork.

I like to collect children's books that are beautifully illustrated. I'm glad I purchased this book, however, I think the publisher could have done a better job in displaying some of the illustrations. In one illustration, part of the artwork is dissected by it being placed in the middle of the book. I know that's me being picky, but really, I think it is a disservice to the artist.

I bought this because it was visually appealing, but the pictures actually looked washed out when I received it.