Yellow Submarine
Grade 1-5–In 1968, the movieYellow Submarinebroke new ground by combining popular songs with clever animation to tell a surrealistic story. This book combines an adaptation of the screenplay with artwork from the film. When Pepperland is threatened by the Blue Meanies and its inhabitants are turned into colorless statues, Captain Fred climbs into a yellow submarine and sets off to get help. After landing in Liverpool, he returns with the Beatles and together they journey underwater through the Sea of Monsters, are sucked into an inside-outside world, and survive the Sea of Holes. Eventually, they return to Pepperland to discover that the Fab Four fit into the uniforms of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. When they begin to sing, everything returns to normal and even the Blue Meanies are transformed into kinder, gentler beings. Trying to translate the ebullience of the movie into a book is a daunting challenge, one that doesn't quite succeed. The text has some of the wonderful puns from the movie, but somehow they fall flat here. Some references might be over the heads of many youngsters. The illustrations combine slightly blurry film cels with pop-art cartoons of the main characters. The color palette is off with some of the yellows turned greenish. Neither the words nor the music of the title song are included. Still, for children who are interested in animation and movies, this book does have a place.–Bina Williams, Bridgeport Public Library, CTCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.