My Animals by Xavier Deneux – Book Review

ABOUT THE BOOK: My Animals *

From the Publisher:

“Experts and parents know that hands-on books featuring high-contrast design are best for engaging babies’ attention. Little ones won’t be able to resist running their hands across the intriguing surface and black-and-white cover of My Animals. Inside the book, peek-a-boo holes allow toddlers to grab and turn each page themselves. And when they do, they’ll get a new peek-a-boo surprise! With words to name each animal and small splashes of colours throughout, this clever mix of style and smarts is perfect for any baby”

Order from  Chapters/Indigo  or  Amazon.com*

My Experience:

Every black-and-white page features a different animal, accented by isolated colours – one per page (a bear’s orange tongue, a green butterfly below a hippo). Many of the peek-a-boo holes carry forward from one page to another—a fish in the frog’s pond becomes the fish in a bowl. Some of the holes make more sense on some pages than others and some appear to be random. My 16 month old twins LOVED this book.  They have reached for it continually over the last few days.  It was especially great for my son who recently had eye surgery, as the distinct black and white images were easy to focus on, as were the isolated spots of colour.  He delighted in sticking his fingers through the holes and having us tickle him from underneath the page. His twin sister pointed with great intent at each animal and we repeated their names.  We have done this enough that she is starting to identify them if we say the name.  It is a hit in our house!

Likes:

• black and white images are crisp and clean.  Their simplicity makes for a focused read with young ones
• isolated spots of colour on each page are an easy “find and point” feature
• puffy cover makes for a bonus tactile experience

Dislikes (Not many!):

• the artistic freedom of the illustration of the animals may make it hard for the very young to truly associate the animal depicted with an image of a real on in the wild
• some of the peel-a-boo holes seemed randomly placed and not where one would intuit they could be located

Why/How Use it with kids:

• the very youngest of kids will love the tactile experience and dexterity practice of poking their fingers through the holes
• anticipation/memory: have children predict which animal might be coming next from the clues under the hole on the previous page
• practicing colours by pointing to the single varying colour on each page (the black and white provides a neutral background to explore other colours in isolation)

About the Author: