292. Toy Story: Some Assembly Required

Toy Story: Some Assembly Not Required by Jesse Blaze Snider. Art by Tanya Roberts (Canada) - (US)



Pages: 112
Ages: 8+
Finished: Dec. 21, 2010
First Published: Nov. 9, 2010
Publisher: Boom Studios!
Genre: Graphic novel, children
Rating: 3.5/5

First sentence:

Hold your fire, men!

Acquired: Received a review copy from Harper Collins Canada.

Reason for Reading: We enjoyed the first Toy Story book so much we had to read this one.

Unlike The Return of Buzz Lightyear, this book is not one continuous story but three shorter ones. The first is the longest and accompanies the book's cover picture then the following two are more like short stories. This was rather disappointing, as I would have preferred one book length story as in the previous volume. However, these stories were fun and well-written. This series all takes place during Toy Story 1's time frame.

The first one involves, Woody and Buzz's continued friendly jealousy of each other and each wanting to have been the one who was most responsible for saving Bo Peep's sheep, they challenge each other to a test of various skills and other toys join in when the prize is a kiss from Bo Peep. This is a very humorous story as we have the various toys participating in outrageous athletic events until the final four are chosen by the Weebles judges to participate in the final event. The second story involves Rex, who Andy bought at a museum gift shop. Rex discovers that Andy is going to the Dinosaur museum again and is terrified he will buy a new dinosaur, bigger and scarier, who will eat him. So the toys plan a rescue mission to foil Andy's finances when he reaches the gift store.For the final story , Andy is off at a sleepover, so Woody sets up a cowboy camp for the toys and they have a camp-out and try to scare each other with scary stories, but what was scary to one toy usually isn't scary to the rest of them.

Lots of fun, well-written, the characters voices can be heard inside your head as you read and the humour is as delightful as you expect from Toy Story. Good book! Just wish it had been one continuous story rather than three short ones.