This is a good book to have in a daycare center or a personal baby library. It introduces a few baby animals for the child to identify. The photographs are simple, so the child won't be distracted by a lot of busy illustrations. The photos also include textures that the child can feel and associate with various animals. The book also introduces various animal sounds that the child can learn to associate with the animals, as well.

I'm babysitting a four-month old and Baby Animals is a fun book. I find it an easy to read - and easy to reread two to three in a row - day-after-day. She has some books she (and I) like better, but this one is a good stand-by right now.

Many pages has a soft fur to touch, but not every page has a texture or fur. Some have shiny, reflective accents. The twelve animals have simple pictures appearing on solid color backgrounds and the pages are stiff enough for the four-month old to manipulate with help. I think her enjoyment of the book will go up with age - right now there is just too many animal types for her four-months of experience.

The attraction of the book - fur and textures to touch - is also a downside in that the fur really can't be cleaned. Therefore a great book for a single household - but not a library or preschool; the fur doesn't work in environments where pathogens are controlled by cleaning instead of limited access. For hand-me-down to other families, I would recommend a month breather between households to give time for any germs time to die.

Happy reading.

For board books about dinosaurs, look to Francescelli's Dinoblock instead. It has cutouts and fun similies and beats the pants off of this book.

cute, wish the touch and feels were slightly more exciting

My baby loves this one :)