Dear Zoo Animal Shapes (Dear Zoo & Friends) Board book – Illustrated, 30 Aug. 2016

I highly recommend this book. The animal pictures are colourful and absolutely delightful. This is a board book and each animal has a single, shaped page all to itself and the picture of the animal is featured on both sides of the page. The simple text is printed clearly. Older babies (1+) and toddlers will love this book. My grandson is new-born but I bought this book to put aside until he is older.

My grandson loves this book

My daughter really likes this book and its lack of any words allows free rein to make up stories and the like. She does also have the electronic version Dear Zoo Noisy Book and it is generally the noises from this that she makes as she looks at the picture only version.On the other hand this cardboard version without flaps or sounds is very much more robust.

Rod Campbell's original 'Dear Zoo' book has been a massive hit with my two-year-old for at last a year. He loves the lift-the-flap aspect to it and enjoys identifying all the animals. This new book is a spin-off and just features cut-outs of the animals with the words 'too big!', 'too jumpy!' etc. It's a nice bright board book with the same attractive illustrations as the original. Unfortunately it's not engaging enough for my son now as he needs something with a bit more complexity. For a younger child, though, I wouldn't hesitate.

This book is a firm family favouite. I got this edition for my 1yr old nephew and he loves it. The thick board the book is made from is durable and the colors are great. For those of you who dont know the story the child has written to the zoo for a pet but everything they send is wrong... the giraffe is too tall the snake to scaly ect... untill they send a puppy which is just right.You cant go wrong with this pre-school story for 1-4 yr olds. especially for the price

I'm afraid this book is cashing in the series' popularity. The original are funny and of good quality, this one is dull. The essence o the book is given here on amazon; too big, too small and that's about it. Buy the original instead.

A board book version of the children's favourite 'Dear Zoo'.There are already a few different editions of this book available, from a clip on mini board book for pushchairs to a 'lift the flap', noisy version. However, this version is sturdy and has pages which are die cut to make it more interesting to hold but are not 'animal shaped' as the front cover states! As a 'first story' for 1-2 year olds I think this is ideal as there are no flap to tear off and it's still fun and attractive with clear pictures to help your child identify the animals in the story.

I will admit to being a bit disappointed in this book. It's very sweet and has the lovely standard of illustration familiar to 'Dear Zoo' readers. But it is basically cashing in on the popularity of the proper story. I'm less than convinced about the value of the 'shape' elements, and it's disappointing that around the vaguely animal-shaped pages the story has been cut down to a scant 5 lines (as a toddler book, it was never exactly 'War and Peace'!).Inside the hardback binding of the book are 8 board book pages with large pictures of animals on them, each animal occupying its own page. The pages have been vaguely cut around the shapes of the animals on their 3 unbound edges. Due to the nature of the cut-outs you get the same animal pictured on both sides of the page. The first side of the animal has its name printed on it, while legends 'too big', 'too tall', etc. are printed on the back. I'm not as keen on this as I could be. The pictures are nice and a good size, but by scaling all the animals to full page size it makes it a bit difficult for little children to see the reasons for sending the animals back to the zoo: the frog and puppy end up the same size as the elephant and giraffe!The structuring of the last page in the book - which summarises the plot of 'Dear Zoo' - is a bit confusing, saying that all the animals were sent back... then contradicting this with a statement about having kept the puppy.It's a pretty toddler book, and it has nice illustrations. But it's very much an adjunct to 'Dear Zoo' and does nothing in terms of teaching about shapes/sizes.

The 12 month old that I Nanny loves this book! Because the page edges are cut around the shape of the animals, he can more easily turn the pages himself....a new skill he is totally enjoying!

Nice book, well illustrated

I bought this book for my 2 year old and she LOVES it! The shapes/pages are fun to flip and the content is very simple for her to read along. It's a definite hit.

My niece loves this book. It helps her with identifying animals.

The babies always love this book! I have bought before and will again. Also fun to read to the kids.