Half of the space in this book is devoted to unnecessarily large drawings (illustrations). The text is VERY simplistic, e.g., it's a good idea to be extra nice to your partner during this period and help out. BOTTOM LINE: This might be a very valuable book for many people, especially as either an introduction or a summary. For more details on babies, check out THE NEW FATHER (Brott).

I bought this for my 22 year old son, who is about to become a father for the first time. He of course is interested in finding out about newborns but admittedly does not have the desire to go too indepth. This book was perfect for him. He could read each section as it pertained to the baby at the correct time thus preparing him for whats expected. The mother on the other hand . . . needed something much more in depth in her search for finding out about her newborn. Perfect for first time dads who don't want to know too much, at least the brevity of the book will keep their attention long enough to learn the basics.

I loved this book. It was sweet, entertaining, and non-threatening; definitely not written for women, as is typical. As a man minimally exposed to babies my entire life, I found it eye-opening and helpful in setting my expectations for life with an infant.

This is a "I spy" book for beginners. My 2 1/2 old was mesmerized by it the first time he saw it and immediately asked me to "read it again". However, he found all but one of the objects relatively quickly the first time around and now it won't take him more than one minute to go through the whole book. I encourage him to look for objects that are not featured on the left pages to make it more challanging.

i am enthralled with jean marzollo's i spy books. who cares where waldo is.... i gave marzollo's books to people aged 2-77 ...... each gift was thoroughly enjoyed

My 2 year old has used several of the other I Spy board books and has found them entertaining. This version, while fun, is much simpler than the others we have read (Little Wheels, Little Animals). We're actually moving onto some of the non-board books for more searching fun.

The pictures in this book are less "crowded" so it's not as easy to pick out additional items for the child to find. I believe that Little Wheels remains our all-time favorite -- we're still finding new items each time we read it (such as the footprint in the sand).

It's an okay book, but not as challenging as some of the others.

I have two boys, 15 months old and 3 1/2 years old, and both love this book. My 15-month old not only begs me to read it to him, but is starting to learn to identify numbers (and many other objects) from it. My 3 1/2-year-old likes it on a different level, to "spy" the objects. Highly recommended.

My fisrt I-SPY book for my 16 month old boy and he loved it. Over the months he has grown to really like this book and now he has become familiar to the objects and the numbers within the book.
It is a great learning opportuntiy for him everytime he opens this book. Now he is 18 months old and sometimes I see him sitting on his own reading this book. And we hear him call out the animals & objects. Saying the numbers for him is difficult but I really like how the author has reading on one page to introduce the number and then I would ask my son to find the number on the other page.... he loves it when he finds the numbers or objects...he really enjoys it.
The fact the book is hard back it has survive allot of journeys,left in the garden,friends house and still looks perfect.
Truely an overall fun book to introduce any young child to numbers.....I hope the other I-SPY books live to this this expectation as I am about to purchase another 1 or 2 of them.

Since I'm restricted to ordering my books online, I'm unable to peek inside to check out the pages.

The alphabet is great with a picture scheme on each of the letters that represent the first letter of the word. It's not difficult to find the letters as they place about 3 large letters on a page with anywhere between 4-7 small pictures around..all on a white background. The inside pages are nothing like the cover.

The numbers and alphabet books might be better for a child up to age 1 (at least in the case for my child).

I bought this for my child's 2nd birthday hoping she'd have to search and find the letters of the alphabet to make it a little more interesting for her. It's still a nice alphabet book for practicing, but not so much for searching.

I found the numbers book to be more interesting since it offered more objects on the page that is more similar to the typical 'I Spy' series. The numbers are still clearly visible, so still not much searching. I'll have to order the older children's I Spy books since young children are more intriqued with complexity than with simple unchallenging pictures.

We play a game I invented called "Can you find...?" in many other related books and when I came across the I SPY series, I knew the author had a winner. We own a number of the I SPY books today and they have become our favorites. It teaches patients and focuses her attention on looking for the little details in life. I will admit that I still use my phrase "Can you find?" to this day. Easy to read series. Highly recommended to 3 years old.

I have worked with children as a pediatric nurse for 31 years and have spent a great deal of time reading children's storybooks to the children under my care. I purchased "I SPY LITTLE LETTERS" for my 29 month old grandchild. There is no better way to give a young child a sense of pride than by asking them to find objects on the page of a book. I am a believer in the "I SPY" concept so we proceeded to read the book together. What a delightful book! It is colorful, cheerful and fun too. The pages will keep a child busy for a while for there is a lot to do. Colorful letters and easily identifiable objects and figures are to be found on every page. The book challenges a child to observe, find and verbally express their discoveries. What a sense of accomplishment it is for a child to be able to discover things. I highly recommend this little board book for toddlers. It is a terrific early introduction to reading.

This says it is for kids from age 4 but I don't think that is quite right. The pictures are blurry and the items are not easy to find. They are quite challenging puzzles and I think the over 9 age group would be more likely to enjoy them.

I SPY YEAR ROUND CHALLENGER is filled with 12 pictures -- one for each month. Every puzzle is very different from the others. These clever photographs have beautiful colors but they're sometimes blurry or dark and hazy, and it's hard to see what's what. I wasn't always sure what I was looking for. I even believe there's a typo, making you look for one thing when it should be something else. In a couple of cases you can see only a tiny part of the thing you're supposed to find. And the extra credit riddles need to be on a foldout page so you can refer to them without flipping back and forth. Still, it's a beautiful, clever book and a lot of fun.

The I spy books are the most used books in my house. I run a day care and have lots of kids of all ages. From the 3 yr old to the 10 yr old they will all sit around together looking at these books and talking about them. The little ones ask the older ones what the words say. I highly recommend collecting this series of books for your home library.

Maybe I am asking too much from a Level 1 reader. My incentive for buying this book was to inculcate my 5 year old son on the dangers of fire. Everything that I wanted like: How fire spreads, air is needed to sustain fire was not in the book.

If you have a child who does not ask "Why" to everything, then this book would be OK. It covers Stop, Drop, Roll (again no reason WHY that is a good thing to do), fire drills, turning matches into grown-ups and safety percautions as well as uses for fire.

Using rhyme and repetition in all of her "I Am..." books, Marzollo makes it a great learning experience for the earliest readers. The paper cut illustrations are always beautiful and work well in this format. I would purchase all of these titles if I were teaching science in grades K-3.There are some new ones due out soon too!

I do ! I sure didn't know this until I read this book. Same wonderful layered paper cut-out illustrations as I AM WATER . level 1 science reader.

WATER EVERYWHERE . VERY INTERESTING ILLUSTRATIONS OF LAYERED PAPER CUTOUTS. All forms and all places we find water.Good level 1 reader.See the others in this science series too ! Adio's.

My 3 year old son has been hooked on the I Spy books since before he turned 2. The Christmas edition is very challenging since many of the photos incorporate only 2-3 colors and some objects are similar in shape. He is so proud of himself when he finds the objects, especially the angels!

The true story of Cristobal Colon (coined Christopher Columbus by Washington Irving and other American writers) is quite unsavory. It's a well documented (Colon's journal, Spanish Government Archives and Church records)story of rape, torture, slave trading, and finally genocide. I agree that the true story of Colon is not appropriate for children. But a sanitized version is even more inappropriate - akin to a children's book praising the Third Reich. This book is a clear example of misinformation. It tell part of the truth while ignoring the bulk of the truth. The result is misleading, but not technically false. For a more complete and accurate reading of Colon, see Kirkpatrick Sale's "The Conquest of Paradise, Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy," James Wilson's "The Earth Shall Weep, a history of native America," Ward Churchill's "A Little Matter of Genocide, Holocaust Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present," and Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States."

This is definitely the Columbus rhyming book I was looking for. With its big 23" x 20" size, kids will have fun just turning the pages. The water-color illustrations are expansive and entertaining.

The book is unfortunately tainted with one page of revisionist history, which, since it is directed at children, is particularly reprehensible. The page in question says "The first American, No not quite / But Columbus was brave and he was bright." Columbus was more than brave and bright -- he discovered the entire Western Hemisphere.

But the book is salvageable -- and you can turn this into a learning experience -- if you take an 8-1/2" x 14" piece of self adhesive paper, match the page background on your computer, then type the following rhyme over it and paste it into the book:

And in his many travels from there to here / He discovered the entire Western Hemisphere.

This section of text then reads as follows:

October 12 their dream came true / You never saw a happier crew.

"Indians! Indians!" Columbus cried / His heart was filled with joyful pride.

But India the land was not / It was the Bahamas and it was hot.

The Arawak natives were very nice / They gave the sailors food and spice.

Columbus sailed on to find some gold / To bring back home as he'd been told.

He made the trip again and again / Trading for gold to bring to Spain.

And in his many travels from there to here / He discovered the entire Western Hemisphere.

This gives children an accurate historical account while affording good practice with three-syllable words like "hemisphere".

A student brought the book to share with the class and it took over the whole day.It produced a remarkable understanding of the adventures of Christopher Columbus. My kindergarteners loved it and so did I.