by Tricia L

Created on: June 18, 2010

This is a board book for very young children which contains pull out animals. It's quite big, the page size being roughly 21 cm squared, and has ten pages. It's made of sturdy cardboard, but the cut outs are a bit thinner. It belongs to the DK award winning 'Touchables' series.

Each double page spread focuses on an animal. On the left side is a photograph and a little rhyme that tells you something about the animal eg; "Zebra foals soon learn to walk and trot. And when they gallop, they go clippetty-clop!" On the page facing is pull out version of the animal which has a 'touch-and-feel' part, usually a bit of fur, and there are a few more bits of text and surrounding detail. Using the zebra as an example there are plant pictures, grass and the words 'lots and lots of stripes!' and 'Let's lift out this zebra foal and stroke her black and white fur.' Behind the pull out are the words 'stripy zebra foal'. The other baby animals are; a rhino, harp seal pup, a tiger cub and a baby koala joey on its mother's back.

The pull outs are easy for a child to get out and stay in quite well when replaced unless they have been bent or broken in the meantime. It could be considered a cross between a book and a first, very simple jigsaw. The blurb on the back calls it sensory learning -"Touch-and-feel pop-out pieces encourage recognition of colours, matching skills, and manual dexterity in young children". It provides a tactile experience for a baby; a cross between a toy and a book. The pull outs can be played with as little animal characters separate to the book, a drawback being that the pull outs can either go astray or get damaged whilst out of the book. It can be frustrating when it's taken from the shelf to discover that an animal is missing.  

There is a slight although unimportant discrepancy between the book's cover and the animals inside: the cover animal is a furry tiger and also featured on the cover are tiny chimpanzees, giraffes, zebras and rhino's but there are no chimps or giraffes inside. This makes me wonder whether there was a rethink as to the animals being used as you would expect the animals on the cover to be featured inside. No matter though, as this has no effect on the enjoyment a one year old would take from this book.

Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Publishers Ltd (2 Jun 2008).

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