Spider-Man 2: Behind The Mask (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

This is a particularly unoriginal name - being as it is the same name as two other movie tie-in books! There's 32 clean white paper pages in this book, which just like nearly all the others features a mix of predominantly color-in scenes with simple sub-titles, scattered with a few puzzles and games. As ever, the plot is trivial - Peter is Spidey, Doc Ock is bad, Peter saves MJ.

The gimmick is an insert of a page containing four window clings, each of Spidey in different poses. Back cover cut-outs are two Spidey book marks. The price is only four bucks this time. Nice paper, art is fine, a couple of cheap gimmicks.

Overall Rating

Not a bargain, but not a rip-off either. Let's call it a flat three webs.