The Great, Beautiful Valley is A Playtime Board Book in the Land Before Time series. It was illustrated by Robert Sanford and Christopher Fowler, while the cover art was provided by Universal Studios Liscening Inc. The back of the cover is purple and shows the five original Prehistoric Pals plus Chomper. It was published two different times under different companies.
Plot Summary
The book begins by showing Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, and Petrie sheltering under some big mushrooms in a rainstorm. They are complaining about the rain, saying it is too cold, and wishing there was no such thing as rain. Lightning then strikes down and wakes up Spike, who, being startled, steps into a mud puddle which splashes Ducky. Littlefoot's Grandma then gently wipes off Ducky's face with a leaf, and asks the children what they would do without rain. The children all daydream of what they would do and explain it to her.
Cera dreams about going to the Thundering Falls and ramming into trees like the big threehorns. She then quickly adds that she would also chase down a sharptooth. Petrie says he would go to the cliffs and watch the Mountains That Burn. Littlefoot says he would go into the forest and look for adventures, which Cera agrees with, and Ducky dreams about swimming in the water. Even Spike daydreams himself lying in the shade next to a stream. The next scene shows them looking over the Great Valley. Littlefoot's Grandmother explains that without rain, everything would dry up and die, and they would have to leave the Great Valley. Littlefoot then remembers that before they had found the Great Valley, he had never seen such deep forests and bubbling streams, and he had never seen a rainstorm like the one that was happening. His friends start to accept the rain, Petrie saying "Maybe rain is good," Littlefoot looks at his Grandmother's smiling reflection in the puddle below him, and in between the slowing raindrops, he smiles right back.
Trivia
- Chomper is on the cover, even though he does not appear in this book.
- This book contains the first mention of the Mountains That Burn since the first movie.
- Threehorn is spelled "three horn" in this book.
- This book has two slightly different versions. One where the Land Before Time logo on the cover is colored (the one in the main picture), and one where the logo is silhouetted in blue. Both versions have different ISBN numbers, and were published by different companies at different times; the colored-logo version being newer.
- Strangely, the colored-logo edition of this book has the same ISBN number as the other colored-logo "Playtime Board Books", while the silhouetted-logo version has a unique ISBN number. The cause of this is unknown, as books are intended to have unique ISBNs.
The original cover. See that the logo in the top left is silhouetted.
Coloring differences
Many of the characters in this book have slight coloring differences compared to their colors in the film.
- Littlefoot's eyes are colored a dark brown in this book, whereas in the films his eyes are more of a reddish-brown.
- Petrie is colored in his alternate colors.
- Spike's eyes are colored red on the cover of this book; in the book itself they are more magenta colored, but not their normal violet color. He is also a lighter green, and his belly is cream colored instead of brownish-orange.
- Littlefoot's Grandma is designed differently in this book. She is much more blue than she is in the movies, and has a cream underbelly. There are also no bags around her eyes, she is less wrinkled, and her base color goes down to her jaw instead of just filling the top of her snout.
