This is truly the worst official My Little Pony book ever written. Like The Elements of Harmony and The Daring Do books, this book was produced to be an “in-world book” a book that exists within the world of My Little Pony that fans can actually hold and read. The book was most likely made for adult fans of My Little Pony, however, when reading the book there is a disturbing problem when it comes to it’s “target audience” of 8-12 year olds.
Every line alternates between crushing and belittling the reader under extreme authoritarianism and then talking about how to solve problems by expressing dominance over every situation. On page 11, we see the first of the crushing and belittling authoritarianism in the line, “Cadets caught littering and causing mayhem will be punished accordingly.” In world, Wonderbolt cadets are something like the equivalent of twenty two years old, an age that if they don’t know not to litter, it would actually be a reason to pity them for how many other life lessons they probably do not have, but to even say this out loud preemptively is demeaning to the reader’s ability to be age appropriately responsible, both to the in-world readers of this book and the target audience of 8-12 year olds. Even I, as an adult reader of this book, find that phrasing nothing short of an insult. Secondly, this is the first time I have read the word “punished” from any official MLP book, and it doesn’t even say what that punishment is, which is not informative but an open ended threat.
This becomes a serious problem with the fact that every line in this book that addresses conflict, teamwork, or anything that involves another person assumes that the reader is in a position to lord their authority over others in a group, and encourages the reader to do so; this is from page 81 “Should two cadets find themselves quarreling, take them aside and ask them to remain civil.” Keep in mind, this book is for “cadets” not “teachers of cadets”, so this book is promoting a bully attitude even if those reading it think they are merely being assertive. It was this exact behavior that recently got my niece's nose broken by one of her schoolmates.
The book doesn’t give any information on any actual skills the Wonderbolts would learn, instead it rehashes and repeats the concept that achieving goals requires more effort and since the only instruction in the book is essentially “how to be a bully”, the readers are encouraged to be-a-bully harder to reach any goal they have. There are counterpoints to each point of bully behavior, however, the ratio is about ten pro-bully statements to every one anti-bully statement, but where an adult, parent, or guardian would give more weight to those statements, a child reader is going to latch onto what is emphasized by quantity.
In addition to promoting destructive behavior, the book makes constant references to named Wonderbolt members performing the sonic rainboom which is against the canon of the series as Rainbow Dash is, as of the time of the book’s publishing and as of this review, the only pegasus to have performed it in recorded Equestrian history.
Equestria would not need nor tolerate the self-aggrandizing, belittling, and hateful behavior presented in this book, and if the contents of this book were written about humans, it wouldn't have been published. Any hope of children reading this book and growing an understanding and appreciation for those in positions of authority was not only failed, but the harshness of the tone of this book has probably created and reinforced bullying behavior in most of the children who read it. Brandon Snider, you have failed.
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3.5 stars
Get a glimpse into Rainbow Dash's Wonderbolts Academy Handbook and learn what it takes to be a Wonderbolt. Includes information on the history of the academy, school rules, and lessons for being your best self.
Includes some nice advice on leadership, teamwork, self care, and communication. There are data drill sections to test your knowledge and reflect on the information (along with a few sassy responses from Rainbow Dash herself).
Nicely formatted. Includes plenty of great visuals. An interesting read.
I love pony books but this one fell flat —- really really flat. There was very little actual voice of rainbow dash (the whole reason I was reading the book), some slightly off information repeated through the book re sonic rainbooms making me think the author didn’t know enough about MLP:FIM to write this book.
Also who knew the wonderbolts were effectively the military ?!! I guess I should have figured that out earlier on my own but it did add a new dimension to Dash and understanding her motivations so I liked that part even if I didn’t so much care about reading military protocols
I love rainbow dash and wonder bolts I want wings now it tells you about the instructors to really fun to read toke 1 day to read good for advanced 6-10 year olds it had like 300 pages
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
To jest tak ciepła i urocza książka! Uwielbiałam My Little Pony jako dziecko i powrót chociażby do pewnych rzeczy ze świata Equestrii był jak miód na moje serce ♥️
Super do pokazania młodszemu odbiorcy, można nauczyć się wielu rzeczy o których w życiu dorosłym się wie, ale zapomina.
Właściwie to się zawiodłam, były tu głównie rzeczy, które były już wiadome z serialu, najciekawszy był dziennik kadeta (którego niestety było mało) i dopiski Dash