World Accord/Beaver

"The World According To Beaver" (subtitled: "The Official Leave It To Beaver Book") is a very pleasant 328-page trip down memory lane with Beaver Cleaver, Wally, Ward, June, and the rest of the clan that comprised the fine cast of one of the most endearing television sitcoms of all-time -- "Leave It To Beaver". This softcover volume (originally published in 1984) is laid out in a carefree and fun-to-read style, with tons of "LITB" tidbits of info scattered throughout its 300-plus pages. Many black-and-white photographs are also included here, some of them posed "publicity stills" produced by Universal Studios, and some of the pics being "video captures" from several of the 234 episodes that were made during the successful lifespan of the "Beaver" series (it ran for six TV seasons, from 1957 to 1963). "The World According To Beaver" is a nice companion piece to the "Leave It To Beaver" full-season DVD collections produced by Universal Studios Home Entertainment. The back cover of the book, in fact, includes a somewhat-odd remark about this book indeed being a "Tie-in" to the "Home Video" releases of LITB. That's odd only because the series had never been released on home video at the time this book was published. The reader of this book will become well-versed in the "Beaver Language", via the section on "Vocabulary Words". You'll also learn all about the Cleaver gang, and many of Beaver's and Wally's friends as well. Plus, there's invaluable data concerning "Aunt Martha", "Gus The Fireman", "Fred Rutherford", "Miss Landers", and "Uncle Billy", too. :-) The book also contains some fun 'behind-the-scenes'-type stuff in segments labelled "Secrets Of The Cleaver Home", "Inside The Boys' Bedroom", and "A Visitor's Guide To Mayfield". And there are lots and lots of "quotes" from the LITB episodes. Reading all this funny dialogue from this great TV series should provide more than a few chuckles for fans who remember just about every episode by heart. :-) The book also includes descriptions of all the episodes, although no air-date or guest-star info is provided here. The lengthy chapter on "The Shows" is presented in a "newspaper column" style, with four columns of program synopses per two-page spread. The Beaver-related trivia never seems to stop flowing from this volume; there's a wealth of intriguing factoids regarding the series on tap here. One of my favorite sections in the book is the hilarious one-page summary that delves into Ward Cleaver's mysterious job and office activities (a segment humorously entitled "Ward At The Salt Mines"). As all stalwart Cleaver fans know, Ward's occupation was never really clearly defined throughout the entire six years the show was on the air (which, in itself, is a rather amazing "Let's Sidestep The Subject Of Precisely What Job Ward Has" achievement that was integrated into the scripts of writers Bob Mosher, Joe Connelly, Dick Conway, and several others who were apparently bound and determined to keep War

This is a great book for Leave It to Beaver fans with background info, show quotes and dialog organized by topic, and an episode guide. The characters are described with show details and dialog samples. Reading the episode summaries, I can't help smiling. The author wrote a useful and fun guide to the show.

I live in Germany now and can't get old reruns. This brought back some memories and laughs from the shows I used to watch as a kid. This stuff is classic and doesn't go out of style!

If you aren't already an expert on "The Leave It To Beaver" TV show, you will be soon after buying and reading this book! The dialogue from the old shows is too funny! I took this book to work and every baby-boomer there was laughing out loud as I read the classic Eddie Haskell lines to them! Wonderful read, wonderful stuff. You will appreciate just how talented the writers from this old series were. Maybe it's because the storylines came from real-life situations! "Wally...have we been tooken?" You won't be with this purchase!

The highest compliment I can give a book is that it made me laugh out loud, and this book did frequently. If you're a "Beav" fan, you've got to read this. The book is neatly divided into quotes, biographies and a synopsis of all episodes (including the "soup cup/billboard" episode-my personal favorite). There's even life according to Eddie Haskell. Buy it but be prepared to sneak peeks at it when you should be doing something more "adult-like".