Review of "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" by Stephen King, Peter Abrahams, Kees Moerbeek, Alan Dingman

This well-produced pop-up book has been designed by Kees Moerbeck, and the artwork is by Alan Dingman. Writer Peter Abrahams adopted this Stephen King story to make a wonderful children's book.

The adult book was a best-selling novel. I think I prefer this version. What we have now is a fairy tale that is really a delight. Not only for children. Adults will enjoy this version, too.

The story shows us a family about to go on a weekend hike. There is mom and son, Pete, in the front seat of the smaller pop-up that is labeled "Pre-game". Trisha is sitting in the backseat trying to ignore Pete's complaints about wanting to live with his divorced father. Mom parks the van and the family takes off on a six-mile hike. Trisha in a small revolt takes off on another trail and gets lost. From here on each page of the story is labeled as an "Inning". We follow Trisha, who is easy to spot because she is wearing her Red Sox baseball cap. Her favorite player is Tom Gordon, and she conjures up his image when she realizes she is lost.

This a bit of a scary adventure with a happy ending. Each page has more than one pop-up to admire, and this puts the reader in the middle of the story and in the middle of the forest.

The remarkable paper engineering makes this a delightful book to page through enjoy for the whole family.