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Dora the Explorer features a young Hispanic girl named Dora, who has a talking purple backpack, and a talking map in her backpack. Backpack carries all the things Dora needs on her adventures, while Map tells Dora where she needs to go. Dora is usually accompanied by her friend, Boots the monkey (so named for the red boots that he wears). Sometimes some of Dora's other friends (Benny the bull, Isa the iguana, and Tico the squirrel) also accompany her. But Dora has to look out for Swiper the fox, because if she's not careful, he'll swipe something, throw it away, and force Dora to go looking for what it was he swiped. The usual formula for the show is that Dora needs to get somewhere, and she needs to visit two other places along the way and do something at each of those places before she reaches her destination. The only change to this formula is when it is one-hour long Dora the Explorer special, rather than a regular episode of the series.

One thing I really appreciate about Dora the Explorer is how the show's writers utilize both the English and Spanish languages. Over the years, I have seen my children learn some Spanish from simply watching this program.

Several years ago, the show's creators decided to add the Explorer Stars as a new angle for the series. Personally, I've never been a big fan of the Explorer Stars, because Dora didn't have to do as much for herself... the Explorer Stars could do some things for her. In the earlier episodes, there was definitely some emphasis on Dora being able to figure out what she needed to do to solve her own problems, and I think overall, the introduction of the Explorer Stars weakened Dora's character.

Around the same time as the Explorer Stars, Dora's cousin Diego was introduced to the series. Overall, I never felt he added all that much to the show. He was primarily introduced, because the show's creators were working on a Dora spin-off series, Go Diego Go!, and they wanted to establish Diego as a character before spinning him off to his own series.

One of the other changes made over the past couple of years was the addition of Dora's baby brother and sister. I'm glad that they tackled the "new baby" storyline on Dora the Explorer, but I'm not entirely pleased with how this was executed. First off, the twins don't have names, they are just simply referred to as "the babies"; this makes them feel more like props than actual characters. And it seemed that the main purpose for introducing the twins was to be able to tell rather ridiculous stories with them. I have noticed in more recent episodes of Dora the Explorer, the twins haven't been seen as much. A big deal was also made out of Dora getting a puppy (named Perrito), but again, not much has been done with the puppy on the show since his introduction.

While I do like Dora the Explorer, I have to say that I prefer the earlier episodes of the series over episodes released in more recent years.

Learn more about this author, Lesley Aeschliman.
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