Feel my shiny bonnet! (DK Touch & Feel: Tractor)

Member Name: mumto3

Product:	DK Touch & Feel: Tractor
Date:	14/08/09 (32 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: simple - bright - nice textures

Disadvantages: none

The Dorling Kindersley Touch and Feel Tractor book has been in our house for around three years now and is still a firm favourite with my two young sons.

We bought this book when my oldest son was about 15 months old and he enjoyed touch and feel books. We are a farming family so anything to do with tractors is a must in our house. My younger son is now 20 months only and he loves this book just as much as his brother did.

The Touch and Feel Tractor book is a board book and it features pictures of real tractors performing tasks regularly seen around the farm. On each page there is some simple text and a textured area. The textures on each page are different and range from the smooth bonnet of a tractor to a prickly straw bale. The text is very basic and is usually either an instruction or a question such as 'Feel the tractor's big chunky tyres' or 'How many lights can you count?'

Each picture covers a double page and there are five tractors to look and touch. The cover also has a small textured area but this is the same as the first page.

My son's are both obsessed by tractors but they much prefer to look at books that feature real pictures of tractors instead of drawings or cartoons. They also prefer the realistic farm toys to the fun chunky Chad Valley type tractors.

I have read this book many many times and find that the text does become boring even for the children. We prefer to talk about what the tractor is doing and what colour and make the tractors are. When my children were younger we just made tractors noises and pretended to be excited by the pictures and the textures and they seemed to enjoy this very much.

I would recommend the book to anyone with a child who likes tractors or even just the touch and feel books at it is a lovely book. I have found that sometimes the Dorling Kindersley books have too many pictures on a page and this can overwhelm a younger child but this book gets it just right.

Having just one tractor and implement per page means the child can focus their attention better and isn't bombarded with lots of colourful images.
I cannot find any age recommendation for this book but I would think that any young children and even babies would enjoy the simple bright pictures of this book. Once a child is learning to coordinate their hands the touch and feel element of this book is great to encourage them.

The Touch and Feel Tractor book is currently available on www.amazon.co.uk for £4.99. I paid less than this for the book through a book club such as www.thebookpeople.co.uk.

Summary: A great little book for a young farmer