Overall, Angela Royston's "Strange Plants" is a good educational children's book. It combines a simple text with full-color photographs that are rich in fascinating details. The plants covered include mangrove trees, banyan trees, baobab trees, saguaro cactus, mistletoe, and more.

My only problem with the book is the title. It seems a bit narrow-minded to arbitrarily designate some plants as "strange." I'm sure lichen (which is depicted in the book) is not considered strange by someone who lives in a region with lots of lichen. That gripe aside, this is a worthwhile book.

Combining an alphabet book with realistic illustrations of cars, this book has everything my three-year old son could want. Each letter of the alphabet gets one principal automobile, and two or three profile drawings of additional cars whose names begin with the letter. The principal car gets a full-page illustration and a paragraph or two of information. Some of the choices are a little obscure for American readers ("H", for example, is represented by Holden, an Australian car, rather than Honda), and the "modern" cars are now a bit dated, given its 1991 copyright. This book would appeal to a preschooler with an interest in cars, a young car fan wanting to broaden his or her horizons, and a father like me, looking for a book that I can happily reread when my son says, "Again?" If you're the kind of parent whose heart swells with pride when your toddler says, "Ferrari Testarossa," you've found the right book.

I ordered this book for my 2-year old nephew who is currently obsessed with trains. Although the book is listed under the "baby to 3-years" category, I found little in it that would capture the imagination of a child in that age group. The pictures are photographic in their detail, but not very colorful or imaginative. Also, the author tries to introduce too much information and vocabulary into both the text and pictures. In particular, I often found little or no logic behind the selection of the small "detail" illustrations that appear above the larger train pictures that are on the bottom half of each 2-page section. For example, a detailed drawing of a "pantograph" appears twice; in neither case is any reference made in the text to what a pantograph is or does. This book might be useful as a simple, encyclopedia-type book for young elementary school children -- with the caveat that many terms and expressions used and even highlighted in the book are not explained. However, this book falls very low on the list of train books that I would give to a 0-to-3 year old.

When I got this book for my son, he was 2 years old. A year and a half later it is still one of his favorites.

This is an essential book for any young kid that likes trains. Each page spread features one train and describes its distinguishing characteristics--freight train, steam engine, passeneger train, switcher, crane train, orient express, high-speed train, etc. The book buiilds the "train" vocabulary of the kids and also teaches them a little bit about teh history of this fascinating transportation method.

The amount of text on the page is limited, which is totally appropriate for the age group. In addition, it is pretty simple and straignforward, without the toddler-confusing informational blurbs that can often be found in similar "encyclopedic" books. The art is beautiful too--clear and very detailed photographic images of the trains.

Definitely a must for train lovers.

My son loved this book until the sound died 2 days after he received it. Unfortunately, before the sound went away altogether, the book made a continuous, wheezing noise that was impossible to turn off.

The photos in this book are wonderful. However, the sound lasted for all of one day. I purchased 2 of these and the batteries on both died within 24 hours. I'm returning them.

This book on cross sections goes from the 1st train invented through the Le Shuttle built in 1994. It is an awsome book with great illustrations of all the trains and there individule history on the tracks, this gives you a great look at the trains and how and who built them. In the back of the book the is a timeline of all the trians plus a glossary on the parts of the train and there use.