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Cars 2: The Junior Novelization
All the world's a racetrack as superstar Lightning McQueen zooms back into action, with his best friend Mater in tow, to take on the globe's fastest and finest in Disney/Pixar Cars 2. Cars 2 The Junior Novelization retells the whole exciting story and features eight pages of full-color scenes straight from the movie.
128 pages, Paperback
First published May 17, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 20, 2024
i think my new thing is gonna be reading these instead of scrolling instagram during my downtime at work because i think it’s funnier. anyways here are some quotes i pulled:
Chapter 1:
- Finn braced his tires.
I loved this line and was let down because of it. I thought it was the author setting the bar right out the gate - these are not humans so it’s a creative way to show emotions on cars. Unfortunately this is the last of this type of imagery for the rest of the book; I’m not sure whether the author simply ran out of other ways to map human expressions onto cars in a way that would be easily readable to kids, or if the meddling hand of the Mouse stopped her from adding any more artistic flourish and this one inkling of imaginative description somehow slipped under the radar.
- The deck below him was crawling with cheap cars-likely inexpensive labor for whoever was running this place.
Introduces the concerning implication that cars are paid differently for their labor depending on their make and model.
Chapter 7
- He felt a tickle as Rod slipped a small device into his undercarriage.
I’m just not a fan of this sentence.
Chapter 13
- “The parts: original from the manufacturer.”
Again, a concerning implication here. Manufacturer of what? Cars, or merely their organs (“parts”)?
- "Lemon?" Holley asked. “Yeah, you know—cars that don't work right.”
I won’t go too much into this since this is a review of the novelization and not the movie itself but like…this feels offensive. Lemon is clearly a slur and Mater is never reprimanded for his use of this outdated and harmful term.
Chapter 18
- Mater had heard of a famous old clock in London. Now he was trapped inside it.
Why aren’t they allowed to say Big Ben???
- From up in the clock tower, Grem grinned as he heard the roar of engines. The race had begun, and the cars in the lead were getting closer and closer to the giant clock.
No really is it copyrighted or something???
I have placed a hold on the novelization of Cars 1 because unlike this I genuinely love that movie and I hope they do it justice. So far not a huge fan of Irene Trimble’s novelization style since it’s mostly a summary of the movie with very very little extra detail. So little detail in fact that I assume these novelizations (since they’re released around the same time as the movies) are all based off of the screenplay and not the movie itself, so they have to be as vague as possible to avoid describing something that wasn’t how it was in the movie. One aspect of the novel which suffers from this in particular is Mater’s narrative voice and dialogue, which should stand out as a character with such a strong and loud personality, but on the page Mater loses all of that, and I can only attribute that to the fact that Irene Trimble did not have access to the vocal stylings and ad-libs recorded by Larry the Cable Guy during his V.O. sessions and thus was unable to truly channel the essence of Tow Mater.
1 star.
Chapter 1:
- Finn braced his tires.
I loved this line and was let down because of it. I thought it was the author setting the bar right out the gate - these are not humans so it’s a creative way to show emotions on cars. Unfortunately this is the last of this type of imagery for the rest of the book; I’m not sure whether the author simply ran out of other ways to map human expressions onto cars in a way that would be easily readable to kids, or if the meddling hand of the Mouse stopped her from adding any more artistic flourish and this one inkling of imaginative description somehow slipped under the radar.
- The deck below him was crawling with cheap cars-likely inexpensive labor for whoever was running this place.
Introduces the concerning implication that cars are paid differently for their labor depending on their make and model.
Chapter 7
- He felt a tickle as Rod slipped a small device into his undercarriage.
I’m just not a fan of this sentence.
Chapter 13
- “The parts: original from the manufacturer.”
Again, a concerning implication here. Manufacturer of what? Cars, or merely their organs (“parts”)?
- "Lemon?" Holley asked. “Yeah, you know—cars that don't work right.”
I won’t go too much into this since this is a review of the novelization and not the movie itself but like…this feels offensive. Lemon is clearly a slur and Mater is never reprimanded for his use of this outdated and harmful term.
Chapter 18
- Mater had heard of a famous old clock in London. Now he was trapped inside it.
Why aren’t they allowed to say Big Ben???
- From up in the clock tower, Grem grinned as he heard the roar of engines. The race had begun, and the cars in the lead were getting closer and closer to the giant clock.
No really is it copyrighted or something???
I have placed a hold on the novelization of Cars 1 because unlike this I genuinely love that movie and I hope they do it justice. So far not a huge fan of Irene Trimble’s novelization style since it’s mostly a summary of the movie with very very little extra detail. So little detail in fact that I assume these novelizations (since they’re released around the same time as the movies) are all based off of the screenplay and not the movie itself, so they have to be as vague as possible to avoid describing something that wasn’t how it was in the movie. One aspect of the novel which suffers from this in particular is Mater’s narrative voice and dialogue, which should stand out as a character with such a strong and loud personality, but on the page Mater loses all of that, and I can only attribute that to the fact that Irene Trimble did not have access to the vocal stylings and ad-libs recorded by Larry the Cable Guy during his V.O. sessions and thus was unable to truly channel the essence of Tow Mater.
1 star.
January 31, 2015
I'm not a big fan of the Cars movie, so never saw the second one.... however, my preschoolers are obsessed with it, so got this to read before rest time. I am always pleasantly surprised with how well these Disney junior novelizations are written, so I give much kudos! But, now I am glad to know not to waste my time watching the movie (not like I ever planned to watch it before). I found the plot to be a little bit ridiculous and kind of out of character for the Cars franchise. I mean, I know you gotta do more than just show cars racing... but car spies is a little dumb (just my opinion).
Though I did enjoy reading it because I got to do the different accents. That was fun!
Though I did enjoy reading it because I got to do the different accents. That was fun!
January 9, 2020
Always loved this particular chapter in the Cars Trilogy, it's a fun adventure with spies and secret missions all while Lightning McQueen goes all over the world to race on a newly developed clean-fuel. This story also is the only one in the trilogy where we see a darker side of the Car's Mortality.
January 24, 2018
This book did not interest me.
May 21, 2023
Wouldn’t normally “rate” a book like this but my 4 year old picked it for his read aloud and after 3 weeks of slogging through it, I HAD to give myself credit for all that time spent! 🤣🤣🤣
November 8, 2023
solid read
February 9, 2025
I'm not really a fan of mistaken identity but this one is good
August 21, 2016
597 - 2016
September 8, 2017
Not sure if this is the edition I read.
Read
May 19, 2014good
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews