Three Story Books is an interesting idea. Each story contains three different tales running across each page and offers you several different ways to read the story. The premise behind SheHeWe is that you can read the story from “She’s” perspective all the way across and then “He’s” and the finally “We’s” which combines both character’s POV’s to show what’s really happening. You can read them separately or page by page. I chose to read them separately to see what the story had to offer. In “She’s” story we see a tea party with anthropomorphic animals and some adventures with a Pegasus. In “He’s” we find a grim and dark world with dragons and very much a story that a young boy into gross things would enjoy. In “We” we see the imagination of both characters played out in the real world. There’s no dragons or bunnies, but just two children having fun and playing together.
It’s a cool story device, but the stories themselves aren’t rewarding. I suppose younger kids might enjoy it, but I personally found very little to be interested in and I think you’d have trouble explaining why there are similar, but different things happening on each page. Perhaps an older kid would understand, but again I think they would be bored since there’s nothing really going on other than imagination. And it wasn’t too imaginative if I’m completely honest. I can practically here a kid sputtering their first, “this is what I would have done…” upon reading this.
The art is solid. It’s the driving force since there’s no narration. I commend the artist on drawing essentially the same thing three times with slight variations and making it look visually interesting. I personally liked reading one page at a time which I did after going through it the other way first. It didn’t really improve anything, but it made the art more enjoyable.
I think this is an interesting concept, but the story needs to be just as interesting and rewarding as the concept. It’s lost in the concept which isn’t why people read books. If you’re a parent, maybe try it out with your kids and see if they like it, but even with its gimmick there’s not much of a reason to re-read it over and over.
Score: 2/5
SheHeWe Creators: Lee Nordling & Meritxell Bosch Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group Price: $25.32 Release Date: 11/1/15 Format: Hardcover; Print