Spider-Man 2: Wallcrawler (Scholastic)

Background

Scholastic is a big name in kids books. I didn't see any books from them for the 2002 Spider-Man movie, but this time they're determined not to be left out of things. They've cooked up a series of eight coloring/activity books, each with a different gimmick. Four of them feature goodies stuck to the front of the book, and one of them is bilingual Spanish/English. Looks promising. Let's open the covers!

Story Details

First, the basics. All eight books in this series feature a glossy card cover, and are 8" by 11". This one, "Wallcrawler" is 32 pages monochrome printing. The gimmick is a sticky blue spider, which will stick when you throw it at the wall. Presumably it will then "crawl" down the wall, arm over arm, like other similar toys on the market. Cover price is US $5.

Inside, most of the pages are simple coloring pages, with subtitles which give only a vague hint of a movie plot. Peter is Spidey. He fights Doc Ock - not too many spoilers in this book. The others are games - word-grid, spot the difference, match the pairs, etc. The outside back cover is a cut-out spider web to stick on the wall as a target for throwing your spider.

Five bucks isn't cheap for a small coloring book. On the other hand, it's good paper, and it comes with a sticky blue spider. The artwork is clean, and there's backgrounds on the pictures, rather than just Spider-Man on each page like in the Paradise Press coloring books. Overall, you get what you pay for.

Overall Rating

Let's call this one a perfectly average three webs.