Oink Oink (Peppa Pig: Marvellous Magnet Book - Ladybird)

Member Name: abbadabbado

Product:	Peppa Pig: Marvellous Magnet Book - Ladybird
Date:	12/06/09 (78 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a great concept for children's inaginations

Disadvantages: magnets easy to lose

I think something happens when a child reaches two years old, and along with the usual tantrums and personalities that start showing through very strongly, so does a love of Peppa Pig. She has gone Peppa Pig mad in the last few weeks and seems to understand that Peppa likes her teddy bear and little brother George likes his dinosaur. Anyone who is made to watch Peppa pig will understand that last sentence, anyone fortunate enough not to have to endure children's TV, then all will hopefully become clear later in this review.
We don't have a magnetic surface on our fridge at home as it's built into a cupboard. As a result of this my poor daughter doesn't get to play with the magnetic letters on the fridge surface, so when we saw this Peppa Pig magnet book we had to have it.
Made by Ladybird books, I managed to get it for a bargain £4.99 instead of the retail value of £12.99. I was surprised when we first got this book at how bit it was. As just over A4 in size, I saw that is was going to be quite large for a toddler to carry. I don't know about other toddlers but my daughter likes to carry everything from room to room if she can get away with it.
The cover of the book is instantly attracting to Peppa fans everywhere, with a large picture of her on the front feeding the ducks with some cake. All things Peppa generally are colour co-ordinated to include the grass and the sky which this book incorporates. The cover is also very thick and spongy which I find quite a nice touch for a children's book. It's soft for their hands to carry but sturdy underneath where it needs to be.

As this book is also a magnet book, you will of course need some magnets which are housed in the bottom of the book under a clear plastic cover. The front page of the book holds the plastic cover in place so you have to open the book to get the magnets. We realised straight away we were going to have to watch our daughter with these magnets as a couple of them are quite small. Despite the eating of them, we knew they could get lost very easily.

There are five different scenes in this book, no story at all. Your job as the reader is to make up stories as you place the magnets on the page to interact with the background scenes. There is however bubbles of text which give the reader some clues as to what you might like to place on each page.
You will see a dinosaur scene, where for example you learn that dinosaurs are George's favourite thing, and it will ask you to put Peppa and her family into the dinosaur room where you think they might like to go.
Other scenes include a picnic in the woods, the beach, a party, and bedtime.

With the book you get eight magnets, Peppa, George, Mummy, and Daddy, teddy, dinosaur, cat and dog. As I mentioned that some are quite small and that' why the book is recommended for children age 3 and over, but under supervision I think younger is fine.
The idea of the book is to use your imagination and create different stories using the magnets and the scenes. I find that my daughter will place them randomly and then we'll have a very short story about why they are placed in certain positions and what they are up to. Obviously each story changes every time due to where the characters are placed.

I think this is a lovely idea for enquiring minds, both for having a character toy as well as making up stories and using imagination. When my daughter is older I know she will get even more pleasure out of the book as she creates her own stories.
It was a shame that the magnets weren't double sided to ensure you could place the characters facing both ways, as on certain pages some of the characters look out of place facing the opposite to where you want them to.
Overall this is a great idea for a book that will hopefully entertain children for ages.

ISBN: 978-1409301769
Published: 2009

Summary: a great book