Soul: Little Golden Book Review

I've finally found the time to take a closer look at the Disney·Pixar Soul Little Golden Book—released October 20th, 2020 (a surprising two full months before the film hit Disney+)! Little Golden Books, like with many people, are a classic part of my childhood; so naturally when Pixar themed Little Golden books (based on the feature length and short films as well as some original stories) began to be published back in 2003 (Finding Nemo was the very first), I jumped right on the chance to collect them all. To this day, I still get super excited for each new release year after year. They're one of the most consistent additions to my collection—I can always count on a new Little Golden Book to coincide with the release of every new Pixar film these days and they're always so well done. This one is no exception.

Making a family animated film that explores deep themes such as death, your life's purpose and the meaning of one's existence is a big enough task on its own—as such, it must have been extremely difficult to streamline the story even further for a short children's book. The complex story of Soul was once again brilliantly adapted here by Courtney Carbone (who did another fabulous job condensing and simplifying the film's main story points for little ones; just as she did with Onward)), illustrated by the talented Nick Balian & Sophia Lin (amazing work you two), and designed by Tony Fejeran—so yah, almost the exact team as the Onward Little Golden Book. Usually they mix up the illustrators and writers with every new release, but it's really cool that these last two were done by essentially the same creators. The art is honestly the main reason I love collecting and look forward to these books and it doesn't disappoint here. I just can't help but love the vintage flair! 

The first Little Golden Books were published back in 1942, so needless to say, this collection has really stood the test of time. Hundreds of titles later and it's still going strong! I love how even the modern Little Golden Books (like this one here) tap into the nostalgia of their old time publications and are still created in a similar, [now considered] "retro", fashion.

Now let's continue your exclusive sneak peek inside... 

Illustrator Sophia Lin said in one of her recent Instagram posts, "I had the amazing opportunity last year to collaborate with the super talented Nick Balian on the Little Golden Book for the movie SOUL! Nick created all the clean layouts plus some initial color work and I got to stylize and paint the final look! l love the movie and it was such a blast to help illustrate this book!" It was fun reading some "behind the scenes" content, so thanks for sharing Sophia! 

This hardcover book is the standard Little Golden Book size of 8" tall x 6.5" wide, is 24 pages long and retails for $4.99. If you and/or your little ones at home enjoyed Soul like I did, you'll certainly want to pick this up for your collection. It's perfection—sure to be a hit at story time! I picked mine up on Amazon (direct link below), but you can also find it at Barnes & Noble or where ever Little Golden Books are sold. It's also available digitally, but I'm all about hard copies.

What are your thoughts? Shout it all out down in the comments and hopefully we can get a conversation going. I'd love to hear your review as well.

Final note: You can explore my entire Pixar Little Golden Book collection HERE! There's one for every single Pixar film so far except A Bug's Life (I know, sad but true). Hopefully we'll get that one someday!

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