Jennifer Zivoin

This book is an illustration of this song. To be more specific it’s an illustration of the first stanza in the song, the break, and the chorus. The words are nothing surprising, but the illustrations are. I like the illustrations, but they seem very country music when Sweet Child of mine is very much a rock song. It does have music at its heart, but with the emphasis on the fairgrounds and the cowboy boots, and the cowboy hat, it just doesn’t seem to match with what this song is. I love this song. I can sing it all, and maybe that’s my problem. Because I want this book to be better. Why not do the entire song instead of just the “where do we go now” and the “oh sweet child of mine”. There’s more to this tale and unfortunately this book does not do it justice.… (mere)

Guns n Roses’ “Sweet Child of Mine” is one of my favourite hard rock ballads - the kind that can’t be sung at any other volume but the top of your lungs - but damn was this book underwhelming. It tells the story of a young father’s relationship with his daughter, following the pair as they sing songs and explore the world together, adding a sort of narrative to the relatively generalized lyrics of the original song. To cement the “story” illustrator Jennifer Zivoin has depicted each verse and lyric in softly muted paintings which show the pair on their various adventures. The illustrations I absolutely love, even though they are a lot softer than I would expect to pair with a Guns n Roses song, but what ultimately disappointed me was that the narrative didn’t quite hit the mark. Sure, we see the pair on their adventures, and ultimately reunited with mum, but the whole thing seemed a bit shallow and like it could use more depth. The characters and story didn’t match the emotion that I felt in the song, and wound up softening the overall impact far too much. This isn’t the most narrative of songs in the first place, and it possibly could have done better with the constantly shifting visuals of video rather than the static of still life paintings - no matter how lovely said paintings are.… (mere)

Annual Goodreads Choice Awards reading project: Read all the Picture Book nominees! (8 of 15)

Well, this is about as sweet a story as you could make from a Guns N' Roses song. Frankly, Axl's voice is just synonymous with debauchery for me, so it's hard to shift gears and accept the loving daddy/daughter relationship shown here.

This reminds me that I saw board books at the library for bands like Guns N' Roses and Kiss. And apparently Twisted Sister has a picture book too for "We're Not Gonna Take It." I'm not sure hard rock bands being repackaged for toddlers is a good trend -- for the kids or the bands.… (mere)