2014-12-06
Packaged in a sturdy carrying case, a jigsaw puzzle and a sticker booklet with wipeable pages provide plenty of bucolic business for little eyes and sticky fingers.Assembling the large, heavy-duty puzzle pieces produces a teeming rural scene with, around the edges, labeled images of livestock, garden produce and 10 individually detailed mice to spot. In the booklet, enlarged details from the puzzle are printed on heavily coated stock over instructions to insert figures from the attached sheet of stickers: "Add some woolly sheep to the meadow. / Find a cuddly sheepdog to look after them." Any drool or goo can be wiped off the pages (the puzzle is also cleanable, though somewhat more absorbent), and with care, the stickers can be pried up and reused. Except for the mice in the puzzle, the very simply drawn, brightly colored animals in Galloway's farmscapes have a generic look, but all are easy to identify, and many are looking up, inviting eye contact with young viewers. The identically formatted Animals Puzzle and Sticker Book publishes simultaneously. Engaging elementary exercises in recognition and coordination skills; more suitable for private play spaces and libraries than public ones. (Novelty. 2-4)
