Pizza Pizza! | Pete's a Pizza... and More William Steig Stories (Scholastic Video Collection) [VHS]

Pete's a Pizza - ALL stories on this DVD are great! | Pete's a Pizza... and More William Steig Stories (Scholastic Video Collection) [VHS] | Ian Thompson, Chevy Chase

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	• Pete's a Pizza... and More William Steig Stories (Scholastic Video Collection) [VHS] Ian Thompson, Chevy Chase New Video Group, 2003 average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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Pizza Fun

If you are looking for a movie to accompany a William Steig favorite--this is it! Pete's A Pizza and other classics are read aloud in celebrity voices (such as Chevy Chase and others). It's something a little different and the kids in my class really enjoyed it!

Pizza Pizza!

William Steig is pure gold, as always! Pete is grumpy because it's raining and he can't play outside. His father has an idea: Maybe Pete would enjoy being made into a pizza! Dad takes Pete over to the table, rolls the dough and throws Pete up in the air like a pizza maker would do; then he sprinkles water for oil, paper bits and talcum powder for cheese, puts him in the "oven" (the sofa) to bake, then cuts him up. There's some unpizza like tickling involved, too. This story is imaginative, fun and tender.

The next two stories are ones which I to my kids many times when they were young. Doctor DeSoto, a mouse dentist of wide repute, works with his wife on animals of all sizes--just not dangerous ones. One day he takes pity on a suffering fox, though, giving him the very best treatment, as always. He and his wife come up with an ingenious way to escape harm to themselves and to out fox the fox. This is a true Steig classic. The good Dr. DeSoto shows up in a later book, too, called, "Dr. DeSoto goes to Africa".

In Amazing Bone, Pearl,a young girl pig dawdles on her way to school, and finds a talking bone in the the lovely spring woods. Pearl encounters other adventures, and the bone ends up saving her life more than once, and also becomes a part of the pig family. I love the part where the bone defeats a fox by conjuring up a magic spell. Narrator John Lithgow hams it up like I always did when I read this book to my boys.

Steig is truly a favorite of ours. Many people know "Shrek", though they don't know Stieg. He wrote several award-winning books, a couple of our favorites being "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble", and the chapter book "Abel's Island". This DVD includes a short appearance by the author in his own environment, which I also enjoyed.

Three other short videos are included. They are good, but rather dated. Each one had a nice message, without being preachy.

William Stieg Rocks! (I've gotten a few of the other Scholastic Videos, and they are also great!)

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Pete's a Pizza - ALL stories on this DVD are great!

My kids (ages 2,4,6) love this DVD. It is filled with great stories by William Steig. If you are not familiar with his stories - you may know him as the author who created Shrek. These stories are gems - very enjoyable children's stories that really entertain and contain some type of moral or lesson- in a very subtle way. Pete's a Pizza (narr. by Chevy Chase) tells about a boy who is feeling glum and his parents pretend to make him into a pizza by rolling him, etc. Really cute family story. Doctor DeSoto is great - mouse dentist and wife who are visited by a fox with a toothache. The Amazing Bone is narrated by John Lithgow- charming story. The bonus stories (not W. Steig) are just as good as the other stories. The Three Robbers- about three robbers who stop robbing and open a home for children. Great White Man Eating Shark - about a boy who wears a shark fin to scare away other swimmers.... This is one of THE BEST Scholastic book videos. Great animation, music, etc. I am buying another copy to keep on hand...we love it that much!

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This is a steal

Couldn't agree more with the previous reviewer. I'm an elementary library media specialist. These are among my favorite stories for read alouds, and they are marvelously done. Chevy Chase, Ian Thompson, and John Lithgow are perfect for Steig stories. John Lithgow's rendition of the Magic Bone is perfect. Kids want to watch all of them over and over. Anybody that appreciates picture books, 3 to 93, is going to like these readings. And for 12.99 they are a steal.

The excellent Scholastic Video Collection spotlights the author of Shrek, William Steig. The title story is one of his warmest and most uncharacteristic--a simple story about how parents find a fun activity for their bored son by imagining him as a pizza. The other stories, "Doctor De Soto" and "The Amazing Bone," have more typical Steig bite; the former (an Oscar® nominee) is about a mouse-dentist who takes on a risky patient, while the latter tells of Pearl the Pig who finds a talking bone. All three stories are wonderfully illustrated, and Chevy Chase ("Pizza") and John Lithgow ("Bone") supply pitch-perfect narration. As with all the DVDs in this collection, the added content doubles the running time. Three additional stories keep the rambunctious air that made Steig (like Roald Dahl) so popular with kids and adults, although sensitive kids and parents might find the perilous situations unfunny. Tomi Ungerer's "The Three Robbers" and "Moon Man" bookend Margaret Mahy's "The Great White Man-Eating Shark," which follows a boy who pretends to be a shark and scares beachgoers. All in all, another winner for kids ages 4 and older. --Doug Thomas

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