Customer Reviews

Who Was Jim Henson?

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

 

 

EXCELLENT!

I'm a Sesame St and Jim Henson MEGA-fan. My favorite book is The Works, an adult coffee table type of book about Jim Henson. My daughter is 12 and Joan Holub's book was a little young for her, but we both read it together in about an hour. I own 8 books about Henson and am happy to add this to my collection. It's well-researched and full of good detail. It focuses on the Sesame St / Muppet years, but also includes plenty on his childhood and about Fraggle Rock and his movies. For ages 7-11 IMO. Recommended!

Jim Henson was a shy boy who came from a very loving family, just like the type he would one day create with his future wife, Jane Nebel. When he was young, his creativity was appreciated and encouraged by his grandmother. "Dear," as she was known loved to look at his drawings of "imaginary creatures," creatures who would eventually evolve into the beloved Muppets known around the world. His first break actually happened in highschool when "WTOP needed puppeteers for a Saturday children's program called `The Junior Morning Show.'"

Realistically, a job that lasted only a few weeks wasn't going to provide anyone money enough to live on so he went to college in hope of becoming a commercial artist, but amazingly enough yet another television station gave "him his own puppet show." Kermit was born from his mother's green cast off coat and the Muppets, a cross between a "marionette" and a "puppet," started coming to life. In this book you will learn about Jim's family, his creative partnerships, the increasing fame of the Muppets, the famous call from "Sesame Street," you'll learn about the creation of the movies, and much more! Do you know how long it takes to be good enough to work a Muppet? Do you know what Whatnots are? If not, you'll just have to read this book!

This is an excellent introductory biography of the great Jim Henson and the fabulous, fantastic crew of Muppets. Most families have cherished memories of them and, when prompted, can tell you a "Muppet story" that occurred in their family or can easily name their child's favorite character. The biography has just the right amount of information and has additional relative pages that include information on the likes of Charlie McCarthy, Walt Disney, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, and other great influences in Henson's life. The numerous pen and ink drawings add a nice spark to the book. The reading level of this book is 3.2, the age at which biographical information is of high interest. If your youngster was a Muppet lover, this is one sharp biography you'll need to add to your list!

If you are interested in the life and times of Jim Henson and are willing to read every scrap of paper on the subject if you're going to learn something new, it's a pretty decent book. But one could have issues with the age group. This book was maybe meant for seven year old's who have a book report and need some material to read from. The text is large, there are well-drawn pictures, but it is still very informative. Not a bad find. It did give a lot of information that I did not know. So on a rating scale from one to five, I give it a four for giving more facts than Wikipedia.

The bibliography for this book is a number of other books very similar to this one, plus The Works and No Strings Attached. Like the source material, this book is full of errors. The only redeeming feature of the new book is the nice line drawings by Nancy Harrison.