The New Mencken Letters

A puzzle book features five spreads that contain objects from different categories such as animals, shapes, numbers, toys, and fruits that get jumbled and can only be fixed using logic and memory skills.

PreSchool-Grade 2-- A unique flap book that asks children to use puzzle-building skills to match objects. Five double-page spreads show items from different categories: toys, fruits, numbers, animals, and shapes. Children are asked to pick one item, and then re-create it in the three die-cut, fold-out flaps on the facing page. They are to keep folding, making new combinations, until they hit the right sequence. Although the drawings are a little wooden and bland, they are colorful and adequately represent the objects in the categories. A thick coated paper is used for the die-cut pages, so the book could be circulated. A better place for it, however, would be on a puzzle or game table. Not a necessary purchase, but a good novelty item. --Linda Wicher, Highland Park Public Library, IL
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The conceit of this slickly produced book is a game that takes longer to explain than to play. Text on the left page of each spread invites the reader to "Pick a toy or fruit, color, shape or animal"; colorful illustrations of six objects are obligingly supplied. Attached to the right page are three full-page gatefold flaps (on top, side and bottom), each with diecuts and details of the facing illustrations. The point of all this fol-de-rol? Arrange the flaps in the correct order, and an image of the selected object will appear in all its glory. The publisher suggests that the book will "sharpen logic and memory skills"--an overly ambitious goal, but the intended audience may well amuse itself by combining the flaps randomly. Van Fleet made more playful and more educational use of paper-engineering techniques in One Yellow Lion. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.