Guess Who!

Rating:
Summary: Very good book for a pre-literate child.
Review: This book has fascinated my child since he was 18 months old. It contains 10 pictures of non-farm animals (crocodile, lion, giraffe, orangutan, polar bear, etc), which are inserted in "pocket" pages. Each page has 4 or 5 "windows", to allow you to see the animal's most distinctive characteristics. After looking through the windows, you pull the pictures out of the pocket page for a full view.

The pictures are gorgeous. The illustrator has used vivid colors and broad brush strokes to portray the animal and its environment. Extra details are kept to a minimum. There is text on each of the windows describing the animal's characteristic (a camel, for example, has "a big, fatty hump", "knobbly knees"), that help instruct the reader.

I believe the things that so attract my child to this book are the fact that he gets to manipulate the book (open and close windows, pull out the full picture), and that the book allows him to focus on a small part of the animal, and then compare it to the entire picture. This book can keep his attention for 10 to 15 minutes at a time. The pages are constructed of a thick cardstock. My child routinely tears up pop-up books, and this book, although it now has tape on every page, is stronger than most pop-up books.

I strongly recommend this book for young, pre-literate children. Older children may like it as well, but I haven't yet gotten the chance to see.