Rating: 
Summary: Another vocabulary booster by William Steig.
Review: "Otchky, potchky, itchky, pitch, pay attention to this" review. My 5-year old daughter, husband and I love to read this book aloud and agree that Shrek's princess is indeed uglier than he. Add this one to the list of William Steig must-haves.
Rating:
Summary: beauty in the monstrosity
Review: 'Tell my fortune, madam, and I'll let you have a few of my rare lice.' 'Splendid!' crowed the witch. 'Here's your fortune. 'Otchky-potchky, itchky-pitch
Pay attention to this witch.
A donkey takes you to a knight--
Him you conquer in a fight.
Then you wed a princess who
Is even uglier than you.
Ha ha ha and cockadoodle,
the magic words are "Apple Strudel."' 'A princess!' Shrek cried. "I'm on my way!'
-Shrek, William Steig Unlike the recent film, William Steig's Shrek is unbothered by the fear and loathing he provokes in people. He revels in his ugliness and beastliness. And when he
meets his true love, she's just as ugly and beastly as he from the get go. This makes for a much different story but one that's no less fun. Mr. Steig's illustrations are
simple and straightforward and he obviously takes great delight just in drawing his hideous creation. Little wonder then that he sees the beauty even within such
monstrosity. GRADE : A
Rating:
Summary: Just Because I Thought People Should Know
Review: ...The movie Shrek is based on this book (it says so in the credits on the DVD version, not sure about VHS), but the book is nothing like the movie...
Rating: 
Summary: NOO!
Review: for everyone who thinks the movie shrek is based on this book, your wrong, the movie is based on another book which is alot like the movie it is written by Ellen Weiss and is kinda old, if you whatched the movie you would have seen that it says in the end based on the book by Ellen Weiss, not William Steig I should know I have seen it 3 times.
Rating: 
Summary: Very cute but of COURSE it's not the movie
Review: For Pete's sake, doesn't anyone read books anymore?? NO, it's not the movie. It's a book. This book is loosely related to the movie, but it is not the movie, it is completely different. And if first graders can't figure out that there are books that don't reflect movies word for word then I despair for our educational system.
My five year old asked to see the movie and I required that he let me read him the book first. He thought the book was hysterical (it was THE bedtime book for a week), he thought the movie was great, and he was completely clear on the point that they were done separately. Same with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (great book, great movie, barely related plots and characters), same with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, same with a lot of great books and the movies that Disney (et al) makes of them.
Steig in general does a good job with the picture book format plus a more challenging vocabulary. I really enjoy reading his books -- they're not dumbed down, and they really use the language to its best effect. It means that there are probably not a ton of kids who can read them themselves at the age they're most likely to appreciate them, but that's what makes for great readalouds. Poetic, well-written, and silly, all together. Doctor De Soto is another favorite, as well as Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. They're all excellent books, with or without multi-million dollar movies made after them.
Rating:
Summary: The original ogre
Review: For some reason, when a book is made into a popular movie the public decides to pit the movie against the book on which it was based. The question on everyone's lips is, "Was the movie better than the book? Is the book better than the movie?" Not that it really matters. After all, books and movies are as different as different can be. When full length feature films are created out of picture books, they usually bear very little resemblance to the texts on which they were based. Now, for my part I'm one of the five people living in America today who did not like the movie "Shrek". And this isn't because I loved the book. Honestly, until today I had never even read the thing. But I didn't like the movie's tone, it's writing, it's moral, or much in the way of its characters. To me, it was a film that should have been produced by Pixar, wasn't, and suffered for it. Then I decided, out of some sort of self-flagellation, to read the original picture book on which the movie was based. The picture book, I found, is awesome. So if a person were to foolishly pit movie against book, I guess I'd have to fall squarely into the book camp. It's a great anti-fairy tale tale.
As you may already know, Shrek is an awful ogre that lives with his mom and pop in a horrible swamp. One day his parents kick him out of the horrible place so that he can make his way in the world. After meeting with a nasty witch in a lovely hat, Shrek is told a fortune predicts that he will meet a donkey, defeat a knight, and marry a princess. While proceeding on his terrible quest, Shrek encounters a variety of mad adventures. He defeats a dragon, finds the aforementioned (non-jive talking) donkey, defeats the knight, and meets the ugliest princess in the world. After the two sing a little song (including such delightful rhymes as, "Oh ghastly you/ With lips of blue/ Your ruddy eyes/ With carmine sties/ Enchant me") they find that they are made for one another and get "hitched" immediately. Note the bouquet of cactus the princess holds. Delightfully horrible.
This is one of Steig's later children's books, so it's no wonder I never heard of it until the movie came out. I think the blurb about this story I like best comes from Parenting Magazine who called this tale, "A mischievous, topsy-turvy chronicle of a nasty ogre's wonder years". Unlike the movie, this book does not interact with fairy tale characters and the princess at the end does not resemble Princess Fiona in the least when he meets her. Also, Shrek is nasty all the way through. Unrepentantly catastrophically nasty. You won't find an ogre with low self-esteem here. Instead, he just likes being awful. You wouldn't want him any other way. Kids reading this book (that haven't seen the film) will delight in a character that's just as downright terrible as he wants to be. It's a great story with a great title character. If you've kids that have tired of the normal fairy tale drivel and want something along the lines of "The Stinky Cheese Man" or "The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs", this is an excellent choice. For every kid, everywhere, at any time.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing indeed
Review: I agree that this book was disappointing. I tried reading it to a first grade class -- the vocab was way too high, and all they kept asking about was "where's donkey?" as if it was the Disney version. I doubt a 2nd grade class would be any different. No one thought the grossness was funny, and the illustrations -- while okay -- weren't overly special. Not a great read-aloud.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I bought this book based on the rave reviews and the fact that our local library did not have the book. The vocabulary and word usage were, in my opinion, too complicated for the target age group. The story was, however, too juvenile for my older children and it was not very interesting to me as an adult. The movie is loosely based on the story, however, the similarities stop after the initial idea that an ogre is the main character. Usually, I prefer the book to the movie that has been created in the image of the book, but that is not so in this case. Before buying this, I would suggest trying to get it through your local library loan program.
Rating:
Summary: BETTER THAN THE MOVIE!!!!
Review: I loved this book long before the dumb old movie came out and I knew I'd be sorely disappointed if they didn't get it right and turn the magic from the book onto the screen.... and while it was annoying that they made Shrek's 'ugly' wife so cute even in ogre form (I guess they were afraid to really make her ugly like in the book, the only thing I see about her when she turns ogre is she's heavier and being heavy doesn't make a person ugly) the whole moral behind Steig's story is "Accept yourself just the way you are" or something along the lines of "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and the movie, while funny with great voice actors, really messes with that moral.... Princess Fiona is the thin archetype of today's societal idea of beauty while her 'ogre' form is a heavyset, still cute, yet inferred to as ugly form of herself.... not only that, but Shrek does not accept himself the way he is during the movie... the funniest part about the book is Shrek's complete confidence and love of his own 'flaws' (or what others see as flaws in him) the illustrations aren't primitive at all. They are charming and wonderful...and couldn't possibly be improved upon... If you want the movie go see it, if you want something better- read the book.... especially if you like a bad pun now and then. William Steig is a genious. I wish the movie hadn't been made because now this wonderful book will be compared to it - and it should never have had to be more charming than Mike Meyer's or Cameran Diaz or Eddie Murphy's jokes. It stands on it's own apart from the movie... Steig's book was really too cool for him to sell away the rights to the storyline and let them screw it up the way they did. In otherwords: read the book, love the book.... take your kid out to see the movie and laugh at the kind of entertainment you can see on comedy central anyday... but read the book out loud in a storyteller voice with wild gesticulations at bed time to your child and sing-song the crooney old witches voice... then kiss your child and put them to bed to dream of wilder things than the imagination can aspire to. This book was MADE to read out loud to children. William Steig is a children's literature demi-God. I love him, love him, LOVE HIM! *grin*
Rating:
Summary: Horrible Ogre, horrible book...
Review: My children and I both loved the movie, but the book is far from it. No real redeeming value you here. The story was dumb and gross. Shrek is an Ogre, so no real surprise I guess. W. Steig's book, "The Real Thief," on the other hand, was a gem.
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