A Bad Snoring Bambi

Today I have three Easy Picture Books for a roundup.  One Very Cute,  one Cute, one not nearly as Cute as I remembered.    John Grogan’s  Bad Dog, Marley! is a Very Cute children’s book.    It’s a story about a very active young puppy who makes horrible messes, tears things to shreds and is generally so badly behaved that his family contemplates getting rid of him.    In the final few pages,  the family’s baby climbs way up on top of the refrigerator,  but before the baby can fall,  Marley climbs right up and snatches the child by the diapers, saving the day and eliciting for the very first time the words “good dog, Marley!”    And the mommy and daddy decide that Marley can stay after all.    Bad Dog, Marley! Highly Recommended.   Buy now $10.95

Writer Bruce Hale and illustrator Howard Fine’s beautiful 2008 release Snoring Beauty is a Cute book.   The king and queen have a new daughter, the princess Drachmina Lofresca Malvolio Margarine (Marge for short).   The happy couple plan a big wing ding for Marge’s christening,  but somehow neglect to invite the fairy Beebo.    Beebo arrives late and places a curse upon the child (“when she is fourteen years old she’ll be run over by a pie wagon and die”).   One of the other fairies, the very aptly named Tintinnitus (who is quite hard of hearing),  who echoes back the line as “she’ll turn into a dragon and fly?”.   Unable to reverse Beebo’s curse outright, Tintinnitus’ blessing is that the princess will turn into a sleeping dragon who will be awakened by a “quince”.   (Oops,  surely she meant “prince”).    Sure enough when Marge turns sixteen,  she is in an accident with a pie wagon and turns into a sleeping dragon.    Many young princes come and throw quinces at the dragon princess until finally one day a young prince named Quince thinks to kiss the sleeping dragon who is restored to her young ladyhood, marries Prince Quince and they live happily ever after.    Snoring Beauty Recommended.  Buy now $9.95

And finally today,  after my exchange with Jodith and review of Golden Legacy,   I located a fourth Little Golden Book in the PCLS collection and brought it home.   To be perfectly honest,  reading this book made clear to me why librarians have disdained this series and generally not collected it.   The book is clearly based on the Walt Disney movie Bambi,  rather than the original rather than the classic 1923 book by Felix Salten,  which I believe I read as a child way, way back when.   The illustrations seemed to me lackluster and ordinary and the text both too long and too complicated for an Easy book.   Walt Disney’s Bambi  A Little Golden Book Not Recommended. Buy now $1.50