Big Band Night: Read-to-Me Storybook

Why is it that children's television shows tie-ins are so uniformly dire? Even the best ones are only just about passable; and most are dreadful. It has nothing, or anyway very little to do with the show in question. It might have something to do with the fact that the language of television is different from the language of books, and as a picture book is seen as being relatively visual, not much effort is put into translating the show into the book form. The best tie-in merchandise doesn't reproduce a story of a particular episode, but uses characters from the shows to feature in games, puzzles and activities with an odd story thrown in, like in playbooks of ...  Read the complete review