Many geek parents often like to share their various fandoms with their children. I am no exception. I love doing geeky stuff with my daughter. With Disney’s purchase of the Star Wars franchise and the release of The Force Awakens, there have been a lot more novelty items available. One of the cuter items that I have seen is Little Golden Book editions of all of the Star Wars movies. If you don’t know, Little Golden books are children’s books with a gold-colored binding. Many of you may have read them when you were kids. Well, I read the Phantom Menace version with my daughter and thought that it was a cute way to share Star Wars with her.
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (Little Golden Book edition) was written by Courtney Carbone and illustrated by Heather Martinez. It was published in 2015 by Golden Books. The book that I received was actually a packaged deal with five other Star Wars episodes as children’s books, but for the purpose of this review, I will only be discussing The Phantom Menace.
The book obviously follows the main highlights of the movie. As much as I really disliked it as a movie, it’s kind of cute as a children’s book. Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi try to help out with the blockade of the planet Naboo by the Trade Federation. They end up escaping with Padame and meeting a young force-talented boy. The rest is history. It’s kind of funny because of how convaluted the politics were with the movie, but in a children’s book, it sticks with the main plot and makes it sort of enjoyable. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that The Phantom Menace is an abomination. However, it’s a little more bearable when you are reading it to a child.
It is really for older children, so there is no rhyme scheme to it. The book is not for very young children who like to tear at pages, since it is not a board book and is more focused on telling a story than teaching.
The illustrations were quite cute and very child-friendly. Even characters who could be considered “scary” for a young child like Darth Maul or Darth Sidious were a little more friendlier-looking for the younger audience. There are illustrations on every page with text as well as a few pages that are full illustrations. The pictures did a great job of furthering the narration when needed.
Overall, I would rate the book highly since it does its job as a novelty children’s book: tells a tale full of action and adventure, where good wins over evil. Obviously, it’s still The Phantom Menace, so I was cringing at bit at some of the parts. However, I felt that it was well suited for kids and was actually quite cute.