Customer Reviews:
 A tale as old as time! August 21, 2007
Purple Pug 888 (West Sussex, England)
This book is based on Disney's 30th animated classic Beauty and the Beast.
Beauty and the Beast won a Golden Globe, a Grammy and it's the first and only animated film to ever be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Also, the film came early in the Disney Renaissance (1989-1999, starting with The Little Mermaid and ending with Tarzan.}
With an English man's voice narrating, and orchestral music playing in the background, this book tells the story of Belle, a beautiful girl who lives in a French Provençal village, and prefers books to being courted by the rude and vain local hero, Gaston.
Belle longs for more than her Provençal life, and boy does she get it!
The illustrations in this book are detailed and sharp, and the characters voices are the same as in the original 1991 movie.
In total, the CD runs for 18 minutes and 28 seconds. The story is 15 minutes and 43 seconds long, and "be our guest" lasts 2 minutes and 42 seconds {it's sung after the story ends.}
The book's 39 pages long, 45 if you count the song words to "be our guest."
How this book differs to other Beauty and the Beast storybooks {apart from the inclusion of the CD} is it mentions Gaston's death! - "Gaston stepped back and tumbled off the roof to his death" in most story books, something along the lines of "and then he was gone forever" is said.
Also, this book will help your child make the association between the written and the spoken word {as the narrator speaks, your child will read along with him.}
To summarise, if your child is at reading age, then this book would make a perfect read for them.
The language in it isn't overly complicated and the moral of the story is "in our looks-oriented society, looks are not everything."
Utterly fabulous!
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