First Explorers: Sea Creatures is the second book in a new series from Campbell Books. It’s a push, pull and slide board book that promises to engage toddlers and even appeal to older kiddies.
The book is sturdy and the perfect size for little fingers to grasp. It’s beautifully illustrated with bright colours and a huge array of animals from our oceans swim across the eight pages. The chunky push, pull and slide mechanisms make the book interactive and exciting, with even the cover including a push and pull button to swop the creatures featured.
Your little ones will be able to turn a dial to watch fish swimming, slide another to see a crab scuttling sideways, push to make jellyfish wobble and slide to watch a penguin dive into the icy waters. While at first just my three year old daughter was able to use this functionality, it was not long before my one year old was also taking turns and absolutely loving it!
Each page features a few short descriptive sentences of that scene, along with three animals that you can task your child with finding. There is also an interesting fact and a question that you can share with your young reader on each page. In addition to this it’s also great to just sit and look at each page and discuss the different animals and environments.
It always amazes me how quickly kids learn from books – while my daughter already knew a lot of the sea animals, after just one read through she had now learnt the name of the Clownfish, that crabs walk sideways, and that jellyfish can sting. It shows that the interactive nature of the book works, and it’s what makes her request it at bedtime again and again.
First Explorers: Sea Creatures is a wonderful addition to your book shelf. It’s a great aid to teach your children the amazing animals that live in our seas and can be shared reading with different age groups from a one year old to a three year old. I can’t wait to check out the other books in this series, and with titles like Night Animals, Dinosaurs and In the Jungle already available, and Astronauts coming soon, there really is something for every reader.
First Explorers: Sea Creatures is available at a recommended retail price of R149.00 from South African online retailers and bookstores.
Last word from Amy: “I like Dad to read it to me at night, it makes me giggle. I love all the friends in the sea and I like that you can push the things.”
Thanks to Pan Macmillan SA for taking us on a colourful journey into the ocean.
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