Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost (Scooby-Doo Video Tie-Ins)

Rating:
Summary: not anything like the TV show
Review: I bought this for my four-year-old son who loves Scooby-Doo, but after reading this to him once, I am going to give it away. He liked it, but that's the problem. It is not at all fun and innocent like the TV show. The book contains "real" ghosts and witchcraft. Several nasty-looking girls who practice Wicca are portrayed as good and cool. I don't want my four-year-old to think Wicca is just a cool and different, but acceptable, lifestyle. The book should stick to the original format of the TV show, which is only a little scary and very innocent and fun.

Rating:
Summary: not anything like the TV show
Review: I bought this for my four-year-old son who loves Scooby-Doo, but after reading this to him once, I am going to give it away. He liked it, but that's the problem. It is not at all fun and innocent like the TV show. The book contains "real" ghosts and witchcraft. Several nasty-looking girls who practice Wicca are portrayed as good and cool. I don't want my four-year-old to think Wicca is just a cool and different, but acceptable, lifestyle. The book should stick to the original format of the TV show, which is only a little scary and very innocent and fun.

Rating:
Summary: The book......
Review: My almost 4 year old son loves Scooby Doo so we have to have the books for his favorite VHS tapes we watch. He likes the book. I think it's cute too. Can't go wrong for the price.

Rating:
Summary: The Scooby Gang has been betrayed by an insider!
Review: Rick Copp, one of the authors of this book, has a number of Hollywood hits to his credit (Nightrider). He has also published a book where the story revolves around the LA homosexual scene, same-sex love descriptions and two gay men living together where the story revolves around a horrific murder ("An Actors Guide to Murder"). However, he has ventured in to the Scooby series (go figure - homosexual erotic murder novels and Scooby Doo????) and turned out a particularly disturbing product. This book fails on several fronts to capture the magic of the more traditional kids' stories. First, there is the very real horror present without any end-of-the-book discovery that the villian is really a criminal person wearing a disguise. In this case, my child was left with the feeling that the demons were real and never really conquered. Second, the book is a PR effort for wicca, the religion of witchcraft. Even positive reviews conceed this point, and the debate has been on whether or not it is OK to preach the benefits of witchcraft to young children. Make up you own mind, but the consistent, overt and in-your-face praise of witchcraft as a path of life (even being encouraged by Scooby's gang) is incredibly inappropriate. Christianity, Judaism or Islam would NEVER receive such an endorsement from Warner Brothers. Finally, the level of fright and danger rises above what most 4-8 year olds are ready for and is more appropriate for an age group that has since moved on to real horror movies. This book is great for Wiccan children, but for the rest of us, we are left wanting the old scooby to return and solve the mystery of why Time Warner turned to Copp to write this story.