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kitsuneheart's review
3.0
Not coming from an African heritage, I think I miss some of the impact of this book. Of course, the story of Aida is entirely fictional, but the artwork in this book draws heavily on Egyptian Old Kingdom style. Seeing so many dark-skinned and powerful, dynamic characters must be quite a pleasant change of pace for African-American audiences.
Sadly...I wasn't into this book so much, myself. While it's interesting to have a picture book based on an old and well-loved opera, it's hard to put all of that into a 32-page book without everything having to be crammed into very text-heavy pages. I feel it would have been improved quite a lot if they had allowed for perhaps 50 or so pages, thus breaking up the text and also allowing for a closer match of text to picture, instead of the pictures only fitting about half of the text on the page.
I think this is going to be isolate to readers who actually like the opera and musical already. Which would be...mostly just adults. And, given the convoluted plot and the heavy text, even curious readers might not be able to get past their first impressions.
Sadly...I wasn't into this book so much, myself. While it's interesting to have a picture book based on an old and well-loved opera, it's hard to put all of that into a 32-page book without everything having to be crammed into very text-heavy pages. I feel it would have been improved quite a lot if they had allowed for perhaps 50 or so pages, thus breaking up the text and also allowing for a closer match of text to picture, instead of the pictures only fitting about half of the text on the page.
I think this is going to be isolate to readers who actually like the opera and musical already. Which would be...mostly just adults. And, given the convoluted plot and the heavy text, even curious readers might not be able to get past their first impressions.
kristenremenar's review
4.0
As someone completely ignorant of opera, this is just the kind of book that makes me want to listen and learn. Beautiful.
annalisenak97's review against another edition
5.0
Breathtaking illustrations. Also I just really love this story a lot.
assimbya's review
5.0
A gorgeous, gorgeous book. I don't know where the idea of making the opera Aida into a picture book, but it was a very good one. Nothing can replace Verdi's music, of course, but if one doesn't have access to a production of the opera, it would be a wonderful book to sit and look at while listening to the music. Puts an emphasis on the fact that it's actually a good story. Scrupulously faithful to the opera, which is nice.
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