[BOOK REVIEW] Puss in Boots by Eric Metaxas

Title:  Puss in Boots

Author:  Eric Metaxas

Artist:  Pierre Le-Tan

Genre:  France / Fairy Tale / Animals

Year Published: 1991

Year Read:  2009

Publisher:   Rabbit Ears Books

Series: We All Have Tales

Source:  Library

Content Rating:  Ages 6+ (Some Intense Scenes)

Buy on:  Amazon  //  Book Depository 

“Puss in Boots” is another classic story from Rabbit Ears Productions about how a clever feline tries to make his master a prince in order to save his own life.  With Tracey Ullman’s hilarious narration, Jean Luc Ponty’s elegant music and Pierre Le-Tan’s beautiful illustrations, “Puss in Boots” will be an instant treat for children both young and old.

Tracey Ullman’s narration is hilarious and creative at the same time as she narrates this story with such energy.  Tracey Ullman effectively uses both a proper tone and a French accent to narrate this story as she narrates the story in a proper tone and she uses a French accent when she is voicing the characters.  One of my most favorite scenes in this video was when Puss in Boots was pretending to be dead and a rabbit approaches him and says:

“Oh!  Looks like that there kitty is dead!  I guess I’ll just help myself to some of that there lettuce he’s got in his bag.  Uh-huh! Yep!”

Jean Luc Ponty’s music is extremely elegant and modern at the same time as he uses an electronic keyboard to capture the modern day feel to the story while at the same time, he brings an elegant sound to the score to emphasize the fairy tale element feel to the story.  Pierre Le-Tan’s illustrations are beautiful as the images are extremely colorful and the characters in the story also look a bit hilarious since their heads are all the same oval shape, even Puss in Boots has the same shaped head as the human characters do.

Parents should know that the narration in this story might be a bit too hard to follow, especially when Tracey Ullman uses a French accent in voicing the characters and she tends to jumble her words a bit when she is speaking in a French accent.  Also, there is some advanced vocabulary in this video that younger children might not understand very well and parents should try to go over the words with their child so that way they would not be very confuse with the words.

“Puss in Boots” is a hilarious and wonderful classic from Rabbit Ears that will have children rolling around laughing for a long time.  I would recommend this book to children ages six and up since there is some vocabulary that smaller children might have a hard time understanding and because the narration might be a bit too hard to understand since Tracey Ullman is barely understandable when she is speaking in a French accent.