| Product: |
Dear Zoo |
| Date: |
18.03.08 (70 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Free, board book nice story
Disadvantages: hard to open flaps and qutie bare plages
Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell
Dear Zoo is a board book telling of one mans quest to find the perfect pet! It has a simple and basic story with simple pages to match. The story goes that one man, who we never see, writes a letter to the zoo asking for them to send him a pet. The zoo sends him various animals and when you turn the pages you see different animals that come in all sorts of different cages. The cages are all made so you cannot see into them but you are able to open the cages, as the book is a lift the flap book.
The zoo comes up with various ideas of pets for the man such as a lion, a camel, a monkey and even a snake, but the man finds something wrong with each of them. Either they are too fierce, too grumpy, or too scary so the man sends them back. On the last page the man gets the pet that he feels is just perfect...a puppy. Which or course is an animal that most zoo's have! I think not!
Of course the idea that the zoo would even send out animals like this is rather silly but being a kids book the idea really is quite good. The pages are rather plane with only a sentence of black text on a white page on every left hand page. The right hand page only has the picture of the basket and the flaps that show the animal inside along with a small sentence of text underneath making the plain white background again seem rather boring. The pictures are very basic with not overly vibrant colourings to them but show well the animal in which they are talking about.
I find the flaps are somewhat difficult to open and you really have to hook them open with a nail so compared to other lift the flap books I have this is probably to most awkward especially for little fingers. Jack can lift the flaps of various other books that have these flaps but this one he really can't do and that I find is a shame. The book has eighteen pages all together and as this is a board book these pages are all hard and chunky. They have a high gloss finish to them meaning that they are easy to wipe clean with a damp sponge. Being a board book also means that it is very hard wearing and can take a fair bit of use. The board pages however are again not as chunky as some and these seem harder to turn for Jack that other books we have.
This book is by the Bookstart people and my friend who had two copies gave me one of hers. I am sure it was her health visitor who gave it to her on her daughters 2 year check but as yet I have received nothing from my health visitor (only advice to add sugar to Jacks apple puree!!). The RRP however for this book is £4.99 pence (which I find a little high) but I do think I saw it in my local Tesco for around ££ which is a bit of a fairer price I think.
Jack does seem to be as captivated as much with this book as he does with some of his other books. The fact that there is just so much whiteness to the pages seems to make him not as interested in looking at the pages. He is only nine months old though so maybe an older child would appreciate the story more than just the pictures and the sound of my voice.
I do think that the story is a nice one and the few pictures that there are, are indeed done well. I like the book on the whole and think it will definitely stay in our collection (increasing by the day) for a long while to come. I think getting git for free is an absolute brilliant bargain (of course) but I wouldn't buy it for the RRP of nearly a fiver!
I would say this is a good book for maybe older children to have, if you can buy it when the price is cheap. Or indeed get it free like I myself did!!! 8/10 for this lift the flap board book.
Published by Campbell Books
First published in 1982 redone in 2007.
ISBN - 978-0-023-01525-8
Printed in Malaysia
"Lift the flaps and see what the zoo has sent: the perfect pet - in the end."
I hope this has been of some help to you. Thanks for taking the time to come and read
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Summary: a nice book but even better free
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