Book 14 Far from Agrabah
Things got a little weird with my library website this week. I got 310 - statistics. And they had a few books on the census and its workings in countries and that looked cool, but they were unavailable. Every interesting looking stat book (ie not a dictionary) was unavailable, but for some bizarre reason a lot of kids books were listed under 310 too. Curious George, Nancy Drew, etc. I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and chose Far from Agrabah by (and the book loves saying this) New York Times Best-Selling Author Aisha Saeed. Yes, it's based on Disney's Aladdin.
The writing itself is a little, I'm not sure, maybe stiff? But readable. It alternates chapters from the point of view of Aladdin and Jasmine with an occasional excerpt from "Legendary Leaders Across the Ages", little chapter vignettes about various legendary leaders of the kingdoms around Agrabah. These are the best part of the story and where the author especially shines, I think. The story takes place roughly from just before the "A Whole New World" song to the end of it. It expands that part of the story. They don't just fly and look at things they visit "Prince Ali"'s kingdom of Ababwa that genie has whipped up for one night. It shows Jasmine falling for Aladdin because he shows he genuinely respects her and Aladdin confirming that he's really in love with Jasmine. Then there's a little crisis they have to solve that brings them closer.
BEST LINE: "The bees were here because of you, " Ali said gently.
SHOULD YOU READ THIS BOOK: Let's be honest- if you didn't enjoy the Disney movie Aladdin (unless you didn't enjoy it because you found the romance too fast) you probably won't enjoy this book. If you did enjoy the film you'll probably enjoy this expansion of it.
ART PROJECT:
Since this was taking place during "A Whole New World" I decided to compose an original score for the book.
Just kidding, this is A Whole New World backwards- I can't compose. But I think it does sound cool.
