Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

by Walt Disney Company, Bonnie Bryant Hiller (Adapter), Neil W. Hiller (Adapter)

They've really got big problems now!

It's a strange world with bees the seize of flying dump trucks and bottle caps as big as boats. No, it's not another planet. Fifteen-year-old Amy and her little brother Nick are right in their own backyard. Along with two of their next-door neighbors, they've been shrunk. Now, they're only a quarter of an inch tall!

Will the four of them ever get back home... and back to normal?

Genres: Fiction, Childrens

89 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1989

About the author

Note: The decision was made to consolidate all Disney publications under the name Walt Disney Company. This profile is for Walt Disney, the characters he created, and the company he founded. Any questions, please ask in the Librarian's Group.

Walter Elias “Walt” Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist. Disney is famous for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. As the co-founder (with his brother Roy O. Disney) of Walt Disney Productions, Disney became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. The corporation he co-founded, now known as The Walt Disney Company, today has annual revenues of approximately U.S. $35 billion.

Disney is particularly noted for being a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world's most famous fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, a character for which Disney himself was the original voice. He has been awarded four honorary Academy Awards and has won twenty-two competitive Academy Awards out of fifty-nine nominations, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual. He also won seven Emmy Awards. He is the namesake for Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the United States, as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney, Disneyland Paris, and Disneyland Hong Kong.

Disney died of lung cancer in Burbank, California, on December 15, 1966. The following year, construction began on Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. His brother Roy Disney inaugurated the Magic Kingdom on October 1, 1971.

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) (commonly referred to as Disney) is the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, the company was reincorporated as Walt Disney Productions in 1929. Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into live-action film production, television, and travel. Taking on its current name in 1986, The Walt Disney Company expanded its existing operations and also started divisions focused upon theatre, radio, publishing, and online media. In addition, it has created new divisions of the company in order to market more mature content than it typically associates with its flagship family-oriented brands.

The company is best known for the products of its film studio, the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, today one of the largest and best-known studios in Hollywood. Disney also owns and operates the ABC broadcast television network; cable television networks such as Disney Channel, ESPN, and ABC Family; publishing, merchandising, and theatre divisions; and owns and licenses 11 theme parks around the world. On January 23, 2006, it was announced that Disney would purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. The deal was finalized on May 5. On December 31, 2009, Disney Company acquired the Marvel Entertainment, Inc. for $4.24 billion. The company has been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since May 6, 1991. An early and well-known cartoon creation of the company, Mickey Mouse, is the official mascot of The Walt Disney Company.

--from Wikipedia

Reviews

[Courtney Kern · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read ahead of an upcoming Book of the Mouse Club podcast episode, which will be a group discussion on junior novelizations of films. I think that specific genre is one case where the movie is often better than the book. This is a scaled down (no pun intended) version of a film that heavily features impressive special effects, so the magic is lost in the straightforward and speedy retelling of the movie events.

[Amy Webster-Bo · Rating 5 out of 5]

i just recently saw the movie, and then i found the book, so using it for a prompt smallest book on my pile, i love how i laughed at both the book and the movie.

[Destiny Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was ok because I got kind of bored and it really wasn’t that interesting. Some parts were interesting like the part where he actually shrunk the kids and the worry they all had. Also, the part where they came back to regular size. This is what I thought about the book.

[Brandon Kazimir · Rating 2 out of 5]

This must have been based on an early version of the movie script because there are many changes between this book and the movie as far as story beats and dialogue. It's almost like someone who saw a movie once years ago trying to write a novelization based on their vague memories of it. Definitely the most I've seen a novelization stray from the source material.

[Tony Hartzell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This 2/5 review is both for the book itself (sad puddle-flapping gutterbaby version of the film) and for the lies printed on the cover: "With eight pages of full-color pictures right from the movie!" It's bullshit. There are exactly zero pages of color anything, and exactly zero photos of any type from any movie. Cheap-printed black ink text on yellowed extra thin only, that's what you'll see here.

Also, there are several nonsensical errors- Ron talks to Ron who talks to Ron, and at least once the kids are referred to as "twins", which isn't a thing in this story.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book for elementary school aged children. A little dry at times if you read with younger children. Dramatic voices and re-enactments help bring the story to life lol. Our kids ended up loving the movie more than the book. We would recommend to friends but only if the book is followed up by the movie.

[Rob Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable little young adult read that puts the focus on nearly all of the child characters.

[Annie Flanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was really a great book to read. I never saw the movie - but this little book it's 24 pages - has beautiful pictures from the movie.

I really liked the story too.

[Kazia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plot- This book started out as a normal family, other than the dad. The dad of the family was all sciency! He was always doing epierements, for example in the kitchen there is this huge waffle making machine. And, they use it before school in the mporning. But the biggest part of the book is when the kids mom went off to work way before the kids did in the morning and the dad made a machine to shrink things, and by accedent..... HE SHRINKED THE KIDS! they all got lost in the grass, and had this huge adventure to get back to the house by traveling through the tall grass! And he eventually had to tell his "honey" (his wife)

Character analysis - One person that had changed through out this book is the dad. He realized that he needed to grow up twards the end of the book. He was always being immanture and not acting like a n adult when he shrunk the kids. Or while he was making his machines. Once his kids got back to the normal human size he didn't take his kids for granted, or his machines. And he was more careful about how he handled things. He changed when he realized he shrunk the kids, and when they came back to normal.

Theme - Sometimes in life humans tend to take things for granted and do not realize they are doing it until they are gone.. Like, for example. In this book The dad didn't realize he was taking his machines for granted, and useing them unthoughtfully. He also didn't realize he was paying most attention to his machines more than he was his family and kids. And once his kids where gone, he realized he was doing that, so he changed it.

Thing I liked, or disliked about the book - I didn't like that this book was a total copy of the movie. I thought it was going to be a tad bit different, usually like books are. Usually the book are better than the movies too. But it wasn't. It was also ore of a comedy book, and i do not like comedy books that much that i had just realized that.

[Jace A 7 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book Honey, I shrunk the kids, by Walt Disney Company, is a book about this crazy scientist named Wayne Szalinski, who invents a shrinking machine that is so powerful it only blows things up things. When the kid next door hits a baseball through the window and it lands in the path of the machine's laser, it begins working. Wayne's two kids plus the ones next door end up getting shrunk. I think this is a good book because you get to read about what it is like to be as small as a grain of salt. To be something you always thought about becoming. I like this book because there is a lot of adventure where these kids have to work hard to get through all these difficult obstacles to get back to their normal sizes. I think it’s funny how the adults are looking for their tiny children in their lawn because that never really happens. The thing about this book is that it was the exact same as the movie, I don’t like watching a movie and reading with the exact same detail. The book should show much more detail, that’s what I like about books, because they give a little more information.

[Forrest · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember watching this movie when I was very young. I read this for BookTubeAThon because it had been sitting on my shelf for yeeeaars and it just so happened to suit one of the challenges. Anyway, it was a really sweet book. It only took me couple of hours to read and I really enjoyed it. It's quite funny and I especially liked the family dynamics portrayed throughout the story. I would definitely recommend this to any child or child-at-heart.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another cute read for the book/movie project that my sister and I are working on. The book made is confusing and unclear about the twins, naming them both Ron and at different times stating there were 4 or 5 kids.

[Zack Rock · Rating 1 out of 5]

Busted through this puppy in 2 days when I was 8 years old. Snap!

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved all the adventure that was put into the book. I loved this book and finished it very quickly.I would recommend this to people who love adventurous books