Unlike my last review of Karate Kid by Quirk books, this picture book Home Alone 2, I grew up on and is still one of my favorite Christmas movies to watch every year. Because of my love for Home Alone, I am biased and gave this book 5 stars. Thank you to Quirk books for providing me with this copy for an honest review.
I rarely review picture books unless I have to share them to the world for either my book reviewing hobby or as a mom I have come across many books that need to shared with the rest of the world because they are just sooo good. When I rate picture books my general criteria is Illustrations, Moral of the story, how much my kids liked the book, how much fun it was to read.
On to the review. This is my second Pop Classics picture book I've reviewed that are published by Quirk and I'm guessing in all ten of these cute children's takes of class movies, the books will be broken down into beginning, middle and end. The adaptation from movie to children's story is done well in Home Alone 2, the script was broken down into easy bite sized pieces to keep the child engaged. In the middle of the story it says, "At an abandoned house nearby, he made a plan.", in the movie it's his uncle's house that is being remolded or at least that is what I always thought, but they don't say that. They call it an abandoned house nearby. It's to the point. Which is good for young children. They don't need to know the Uncle isn't in town and his house is being renovated and is too much info, keep it simile.
My favorite part of the movie is when Marv is covered in paint and goes to the sink to wash his face and gets electrocuted. When he looks up through the ceiling and yells "Haaaweeee??" instead of Harry and his voice is all wobbly that, to this day cracks me up. When I recieved this picture book in the mail, I ripped open the package and flipped through the pages looking for that particular scene. It was nowhere to be found. Which was a bummer, but I get it. Again, this is a picture book for smaller kids. All of the trips and falls that happen to Marv and Harry in the movie are toned down and not so violent. So the brick throwing scene where Marv gets hit in the face is also missing from this picture book. Booo!! Just kidding.
Last thing I want to address is again the beginning, middle and end sequence. We are getting snippets of the movie here so a lot is missing. There is no mention of the family looking for Kevin or being worried that he was in a different state. It also doesn't address the rest of the McCalister family that is also with Kevin's parents and siblings. The book also doesn't talk about how Mr. Duncan knew it was Kevin that saved his store. In the movie it obviously shows this, but in the book it's missing.
I know I'm not the demographic for this picture book, but it was a lot of fun to read, the illustrations are adorable and colorful and now I have a book on one of my favorite Christmas movies. I'm happy about that. Whether you like the movie, there is a Christmas tree in the book, so this book is always good to read to your kids during the holidays teehee.
Hope this review was helpful.