Adorable drawings of multi-cultural children playing together. Wonderful rhythm and rhyme. Nice to have a board book that's bigger than 4" square! We just wish it was longer because it's so much fun to read with our toddler.

I have all 4 of these Oxenbury books and both of my kids have been absolutely captivated by them. It is the only book that they will just sit and actively listen and follow from between 6-15 months. Watch their faces while another reads it to them and you will be amazed at how the respond to the simple, large pictures and rhymes. As an adult, I am attracted to more detailed and complex illustrations, but this is what a BABY likes! Any of her books are a perfect way to introduce you child to book reading.

This is my 8 month old's favorite book. Everytime I read it to her, which is everyday for the past several months, she goes into a state of bliss. She loves the big, happy, bouncy multi-cultural babies and I always sing the words to her for added pleasure. Great choice for infants.

I very much enjoyed this book because it was full of pure fun reading. Some books drag from the very beginning, but this children's story didn't. There were surprises from the start. This book is an all original example of using your imagination. Lewis Carrol was gifted enough to let his imagination go wild, and to write it down on paper. This book inspires me to write any sort of crazy thing that is worth writing. This book is about Alices adventures from the time she saw the peculiar White Rabbit with a waistcoat and watch. She meets thrilling but very arguementive creatures and charectors such as the caterpiller who smokes, the Duchess and her baby which turns into a pig, a Mock Turtle, a gryphon, and the most famous the Chesire cat and the Queen of Hearts. This book is a bit different than the Disney movie. There are other charecters in the book that are not mentioned in the animated movie. and I think the book is more bizarre.

'Alice in Wonderland', by Lewis Carroll, is an excellent book for both adults and children. It details a little girl's wild adventure through a make believe world. The writing was clever. And so were the characters and situations created by Carroll. Everyone is familiar with the principal idea of the book, but reading the book forces you to remember all the particulars. It it clear why children love this book, which it's fantastic situations.

Being a software developer and a computer science major, it was also interesting to pick up on concepts such as reasoning and logic skattered within the book (Carroll was a mathematician). Of course these concepts are skewed in Wonderland.

If you've never read this book before, put it on your "must read" list. It's a short book and a fast read. If you you're read it already, why not read it again?

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is one of the most clever and entertaining books yet written. The author's use of language is extremely appealing to the younger readers. These young readers are attracted to this book because of the author's use of many songs. For instance the lullaby sung by the duchess to her child. The Mock Turtle also sang to Alice and the Gryphon a song about the Lobster Quadrille. The author also uses poems that are entertaining and fun to listen to. "You are Old Father William" is one of the many poems. Not only does the author use poems but she also uses commonly known poems and changes the words to fit the character saying them. For instance the Mad-Hatter sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in different words saying "Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky." If this isn't a unique way of writing I dont know what is. Another style of her writingthat is appealing is when she creates a picture, using words in a poem, about the poem. Yhis is used on page 37. The words in the book are nbot hard so the book can be enjoyable when it is being read, not stressful. The author brings animals to life which is an interesting style of writing. This is Lewis Carroll's style of writing. The main character in this book is a little girl with blonde hair named Alice. This child is full of fantasies and dreams, which is what the book is about. Alice is very curious and likes to know every little detail. She thinks she is very smart. For example, when Alice is listening to the Dormouse's story she asks questions like "What did they live on," and makes smart comments such as "They could'nt have done that you know, they'd have been ill." She is also a little bit bratty, especially to the Dormouse when she says: "Nobody asked your opinion." These characteristics pull together to make an interesting main character and to create a fabulous story. The theme of the story is sometimes you need to take a break out of every day life and dream of fantasize. This makes your life more interesting even if you dream about things that will never come true. Alice does this when she dreams about changing sizes and listening to talking animals. Dreaming doesn't hurt anyone except the people who don't do it. If nobody ever had dreams life would be extremely stressful and boring. The plot of the story is all about Alice trying to find the white rabbit, which of course is in her dream. Following the white rabbit takes ALice to interesting places, such as the Courtroom filled with animals, and the Duchess' house, along with meeting interestingpeople such as the Cheshire-Cat and the Queen. This amazing cat hes the ability to disappear whenever it wants to and it always smiles. In the end Alice finds the white rabbit and then wakes up from her dream. This is the plot of the story. The story is effective to the reader. This is so because after listening to such acreative dream and fantasy, it inspires people to take a little time out of the day and be creative and dream once in a while. All the parts of this five star story; the writer's style, the main character, the theme, and the plot; come together to create the overall effectiveness of the story. This is why I rated this book five stars.

The 4 Baby Board Books really are cute books. The stories are very brief for those short attention spans, and they have a wonderful rhyme and rhythm. The pictures of the babies are also very appealing. The only quality that disappointed us was the material construction of the books. When we received them our son was not quite a year old, and he destroyed two of them in the first two days. We can tape them back together, but we had expected them to be more durable and more baby-resistant.

My daughter loves this set. She acts out the rhythmic prose as we read to her. The content is fun, friendly, and fast moving. The artwork is cute and apparently an appealing complement to the text. Our daughter was saddened when all but one of this set was lost on a trip. She would search and search and then select the one remaining. This was a set well worth replacing. These were recommended to us, and I would recommend them to anyone who is beginning to read to their child.

A simple and sweet story about reading books with daddy. For some reason when this series was adapted for the board book format the story was changed from first to third person. But it is still a nice book to share with your young ones.

Anyone who has read stacks and stacks of book to their little one will appreciate this sweet book. "Daddy likes to read his paper, but he doesn't mind reading to Tom." The text is pleasingly simple. The illustrations are also fairly minimal, yet there are some wonderful details that toddlers love, like a cat that would rather not be around Tom too much. A favorite at our house.

The author has written a children's version of George Orwell's "Animal Farm". The story is the same but with the violence omitted. The duck works for the farmer, who is portrayed as lazy. The animals decide to revolt but instead of being killed (a la Animal Farm), the farmer is run off the property that he owns. In effect, the animals have stolen the farm from him. The duck throws away his sickle as he is now free from the slavery of the farm owner. The animals set to work on "their" farm, only now the duck is giving the orders. In "Animal Farm" Orwell goes one step further and shows how the new animal leader becomes a tyrannt, whereas this book ends with everyone working together on a sunny day. (The imagery in this book is well done) The perfect communist utopia where the hard working common man or proletariat, has overthrown the "lazy" wealthy owner or bourgeois. It is a misconception that "owners" don't do any work. They might not do much physical labour but they do the most important work: the work of the mind.

Aside from the theme, I didn't like this book because it encourages theft:

1) theft of a good idea for a story 2) theft of property

You can't help but feel instant pity for the little duck made to do all the work on the fat farmer's farm. He soldiers on while the chubby farmer monitor's his progress with a "how goes the work?" - a phrase my four year old now knows by heart and cries with a snigger with the turn of every page.

The beautiful illustrations carries the Orwellian story of the animal's revolt well, and although the ending is a little far-fetched and rosy-colored, the book it's a wonderful read that has become one of our favorites.

even two weeks after I read them the story in their second grade class. Kids love it. It has all the entry points for beginning readers, and adults love it too--for similar reasons. I've had university faculty tell me that it's the Communist Manifesto for kids (remember the centrality of labor, organization, and consciousness), that it's a Trotskyist text (note the role of the Duck at the end) and that it's a classic of feminism (note the multiple voices that had to be considered to fashion the uprising). It's a classic, from whatever interpretation, because it's full of joy, resistance, and hope.

This book didn't look that interesting to me, but we took it out of the library after my 15-month-old daughter expressed interest in it. She loved it so much that we ended up ordering a copy for ourselves and she never seems to get tired of it. As we read all the things the baby can do, she actually acts out the actions (i.e., walk, jump, slide down our leg, etc.). It seems to be one of those deceptively simple books that babies identify with more than their parents would guess!

My daughters found this fun when they were babies and toddlers, and I found it simple enough to keep the attention of such young children. It can be a fun activity book, with the children mimicing everything they see.

Our son received the boxed set of four tiny board books including "I Can", "I Touch", "I Hear" and "I See" as a gift when he was born. These were the first books we ever read to him and we started when he was just a few months old.

Being small board books, they were great for a first book because our son could hold them and even chew on them and really get interested in the idea of a book. He could hold one while we read another. Being simple picture books with a cute baby as the focus, the books seem to hold an infants attention and we had lots of opportunity for interaction. I talked a lot about what the baby was doing and feeling -- as well as the other objects on each page.

When our son started standing and walking, he started imitated the actions in "I Can." At 23 months, he still picks these books up and goes through them by himself from time to time. The books have gotten so much use that they are falling apart!

I'm online looking for the boxed set to give to friends with a newborn...

This is a story about a flea and a louse who want to marry. Various insects and animals in the field give them food, wine, song, dance, etc. for the ceremony. It introduces various animals, which is good. But it is a little disappointing because it doesn't consistently rhyme. The ending is also not very nice for a young child-the cat eats the mouse. The book has the music in the back for parents who sing.