Activity Books Reviews


Blanket Babies – Designed by Sue Baker, illustrated by Jess Stockham

This collection of four tactile board books allows mum and baby to share everyday experiences. Beautiful, simple stories that make cuddling up together all the more enjoyable.
www.babyworld.co.uk – March 2006

Peep-O! – Designed by Sue Baker, illustrated by Jess Stockham

This is a unique board book that comes with a cloth attached. You can share in babies everyday experiences and help them to enact and understand them. Baby and guardian can have great fun playing Peep-O with a nice surprise at the end.
Betty Bookmark – March 2006

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Little Drivers Here to Help! – Illustrated by Dan Crisp

 Each page of this great board book has an acetate pocket that allows you to slot the driver into the driving seat of lots of different vehicles.
Betty Bookmark – March 2006

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All Change! - illustrated by Angela Lambert

More of a novelty than an activity book, we just couldn't resist this. There's a little cardboard figure on a string, with a boy on one side of it and a girl on the other. You slide the figure into plastic pockets on each page to see the child appear as an astronaut, a nurse, a fire-fighter, a mechanic or a gardener. As with all Child's Play books this is top quality, a natty idea and very gender PC as well.
Evening Echo/Irish Examiner – Summer 2005


These are ‘must buy' books for the whole early years. The Reception children at St Oswald's Catholic Primary in Wigan couldn't put these down. They laughed, compared, recommended and discussed them. Each book has its own sturdy card figure (boy on one side, girl on other) fixed by ribbon to the spine. Move it to the plastic ‘costume' pocket on each page and turn the child into a penguin, nurse or an astronaut! Children were fascinated by the idea of dressing up as a hotdog and intrigued by the fun, factual text which they could read: ‘I am chewy. Squeeze on the sauce. Munch! I am a hotdog! The books prompted speculation about what they would do if one child was a bowl of spaghetti and the other was a crocodile, or if someone was the ice-cream, which would the croc eat? These books are very good value for the conversation they inspired and at a basic level they clearly define categories.
Practical Pre-School – September 2005

What kind of food would you like to be? Slippery sprinkle-on-the-cheese spaghetti or a chewy, squeeze-on-the-sauce hotdog? In this clever novelty board book your child can be anything she wants, just by moving the card ‘puppet' around. Durable and colourful with an imaginative theme.
Right Start Best Toy Awards – 2005
Bronze Award Winner

Young children can continually change their opinions on what they like. A new series of books lets them explore a whole variety of topics and change their mind at the drop of a hat!
The All Change! series is a set of four brightly coloured titles, Animals, Food, Party and Jobs , allowing the children to explore each subject and tackle gender stereotypes.
Nursery Education, June 2005

The clever construction allows your child to interact with every page to be whatever they want, from a penguin to a tiger to a rabbit, depending on how they feel. It allows your child to explore emotions and feelings, and have fun at the same time. Simple text and colourful pages make this a book your child keeps picking up.
www.babyworld.co.uk – March 2005
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Pass the Parcel – Sue Baker and Annie Kubler

Big, bold, bright simplistic illustrations perfectly partner simplistic repetitive text in this ‘lift-the-flap' picture book for infants. Mouse delivers Frog a square parcel which is patterned and coloured the same as frog. When the flaps are lifted, a circular parcel with a different colour and pattern is revealed. When the page is turned, a new animal character (who is the same colour/pattern as the parcel) is introduced and the parcel passed on and opened anew.
This is an entertaining, amusing book, and the bold, colourful illustrations and repetition of words will appeal to younger infants. However, the wrapping paper of each inner parcel is supposed to act as an indicator of the type of animal the next recipient will be. Due to the exaggerated style of illustration, this will not always be immediately obvious to the younger child. The book is also supposed to act as an introduction to shapes, and while this works in terms of basic shapes, I feel that the age groups of the child who will best appreciate this book may be a little young to distinguish between hexagons and octagons. Nonetheless, children will enjoy the fun drawings and surprise elements and will engage with characters as they join in a familiar game of pass the parcel!
INIS, Summer 2005

Based on the favourite game of pass the parcel, each character in turn finds the parcel and the reader helps them tear off a layer by opening the double flap. Inside is a parcel of a different shape, until finally the final layer comes off and out pops mouse. The bright, clear pictures and flaps appeal to the very young, while older children can enjoy spotting and naming the different shapes.
The Word Pool – March 2005

The parcels here have no labels; it is up to the reader to discover the rightful owners. An exciting introduction to the language of patterns, colours and shapes. The careful design allows young children to share the thrill of opening a parcel over and over again.
Carousel, Issue 29 – Spring 2005

If you've ever watched young children open layer after interminable layer of wrapping paper in a game of pass the parcel, knowing yourself that the present is another ten layers away, you'll find humour in this book of the same name. When Mouse brings a parcel, no-one knows who it is for and each animal opens a wrapper, under a flap, and passes it on.
Cork Evening Echo – February 2005
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What’s the time, Mr Wolf? – Annie Kubler

Another finger puppet book with a slightly ferocious looking wolf puppet that could initially have your toddler reluctant to touch and then reluctant to put down! It introduces learning the time as Mr Wolf and Little Wolf are permanently hungry, no matter what time of day it is. Your toddler will love using the puppet to eat himself, you and anyone else in the vicinity.
www.babyworld.co.uk – March 2005


Fabulous finger-puppet interpretation of the classic children’s game. Perfect for learning to tell the time.
Scholastic Literacy and Numeracy – June 2004

Not only is this book educational, it is great fun and exciting. My five and eight year old thought it was excellent! Highly recommended!
www.forparentsbyparents.com - August 2004

Very original concept book with finger puppet wolf who appears through every page and adds a new dimension to the tale. Children will love acting out the story.
Prima Baby – September 2004
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The Gingerbread Man – illustrated by Linda Jeffrey

Just about everything published by Child's Play could be included in a ‘best books' list. Educational and fun in equal measure, this is one in a whole library of traditional tales. It's well produced, with a felt gingerbread man on a string who threads through holes in the pages.
Irish Examiner, Spellbound Books – November 2004

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See you later, Alligator! – Annie Kubler

This fun book has a finger puppet alligator which your toddler can move throughout the story – once he has realised that it's not actually real! The story introduces the idea of helping others…as it follows Alligator who needs to learn there is a time for play and a time for work. Your child will love the bright pages and fun story, as long as he can get it away from older siblings and dads!
www.babyworld.co.uk – March 2005


See you later, Alligator! by Annie Kubler is a delightful finger puppet book that will entice even the most reluctant reader. Alligator is always too busy to help crocodile with his chores. When and how will he learn that there is a time for work and a time for play? A fun and colourful introduction to the idea of helping others. The book, published by Child’s Play International, has repetitive phrasing which children will love as they will be able to join in with reading until they will eventually be reading it all by themselves.
Middleton & North Manchester Guardian and Rosendale Free Press - August 2004
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Ten Little Speckled Frogs – Jess Stockham

The book is very colourful and educational, with repetitive text. My son took it to school and his classmates (and teacher) loved it and asked him to bring it in again…a definite stamp of approval!
www.forparentsbyparents.com - August 2004
 

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Ten Beads Tall - Pam Adams

This book is written to introduce young children 3 to 6 years to the mathematical concept of measurement. Children use ten cube beads to measure how tall, how wide, and how long the objects pictured on each page are. On the final page they are invited to use what they have learnt about measuring to solve the problem of which vehicles can pass through the tunnel.
www.enc.org – March 2005


This book doesn't just talk about measuring - it encourages children to do it. Securely attached to the spine is a cord on which are ten beads, identical in size but varied in colour. Readers are encouraged to use the beads to measure the size of the pictures on the pages. There is no story - each spread features a different measuring activity to introduce a range of measuring words including tall, wide, high and long. The last two spreads use measuring to help decide which vehicles will fit in a tunnel
and matching objects to the appropriate size box.
The Word Pool - July 2002
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Countdown to Christmas – Kees Moerbeek

This novel idea is a book, a present and a surprise all rolled in to one – literally! Instead of turning pages, the box unravels in a countdown to Christmas.
Toddlers are fascinated with the pop-up pictures such as the ‘Eight exciting toys' and the ‘Four frosty snowmen'.Each number from ten down to two has a corresponding pop-up and the excitement for children as they pull open the final box for the surprise makes this a Christmas book that all toddlers will put on their list to Santa.
Babyworld.co.uk - December 2004

The roly-poly book Countdown to Christmas is cube shaped and rolls out with
unbelievable pop-up features that count down from ten to one. A brilliant and
useful novelty for involvement in any setting.
Practical Pre-School – November 2004


This book is a clever adaptation of the pop-up book. Rather than pages to turn, this cube shape book unrolls as you count along from one to ten. the pictures have a lovely fluid movement to them and the illustrations are bright and cheerful. ... this book appealed to the two-year-olds who loved the bright moving pictures, to the four-year-olds who liked the way that the book rolled and back in. We all squealed with delight at the final surprise hidden in the centre of the book.
Practical Pre-School Magazine - October 2003
      

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