Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We own four other 5 minute story books and we love them. We read 5 Minute Frozen Stories, 5 Minute Minnie Tales, and both editions of 5 Minute Princess Stories on a regular basis. But this book... not a winner. First, the quality of the stories varies widely. The Toy Story story is cute, clever, and funny. The Aurora story.... sparse, clunky, full of plot holes that would have been easily filled by a couple more lines of text. Second, it so happened that the first three stories my daughter wanted to read (Aurora, Jasmine, Mulan) were all about girls taking on athletic/combat competitions and not winning, but that's okay because: - what's important is that you tried! - it's more important for everyone to have fun! - she put the safety of her friends first! Now, those messages may be good, but it was frustrating that as we read through all these the message seemed to be "girl power is not winning," and "powerful women don't prioritize winning." It's true, I want my daughter to know that winning isn't the most important thing but... it didn't even make sense for all of these characters to lose. It made sense for Aurora not to win when she was trying jousting for the first time but beside that it felt like the authors were really pushing for the girls to NOT win, as if it was really important to show that NOT winning is better. For example: Jasmine's polo team doesn't win because she (team captain) and the team decide to intentionally let another team's players play and win. They feel sorry for them because their captain won't let them play. As a result Jasmine's team doesn't win. Is that really good sportsmanship? Wouldn't it be a good example to show that teams win when a captain lets her team play? Wouldn't it be a good example for Jasmine to go talk to the other captain, rather than undermining her by helping her team play... instead of actually playing polo? But, the even worse example is the Mulan story: Mulan is disqualified from her combat competition because she steps out of bounds. She steps out of bounds to protect her friends because her opponent's weapon is hurtling towards them. She saves them... and loses. WHY? Why is she (the woman) disqualified for stepping out of bounds, while her opponent (big strong man) is NOT disqualified for ENDANGERING THE AUDIENCE. To me it reads as if the match is fixed by the author. Mulan can't win, because that's not as good a lesson. The man gets to win, even though he made a mistake. No one protests and says "he shouldn't win! he almost killed a spectator!" Instead the woman takes the fall and everyone says "that's okay, you tried! We're proud!" Okay, finally, let's talk about the Mulan story some more. In the Mulan story we meet Mulan's opponents. They're Chinese, of course. And they have names like "Wa Na Pu" and "Pao Er Fu." (those might not be the exact names, but something like that). ARE. YOU. KIDDING? Rather than give these Chinese characters clever and appropriate Chinese names the author resorted to English word play. This is not only lazy, but also disrespectful. My family happens to be of a Chinese background and I am raising kids who happen to have Chinese middle names. This story is basically making a mockery of Chinese names and not taking the culture of the characters seriously and that is so sad. If this book is going to include a diverse cast of characters then the characters' cultures need to be taken seriously. The authors also need to recognize that they are writing for a diverse audience who will expect better. Overall.... there are some good stories in here, but if you're a discerning reader... find your "girl power" elsewhere.