LOOK WHO'S MOOING!

A duckling’s search for a favorite “farm
sound” invites toddlers to choose their own from a pressure-sensitive gallery
of 10 animal calls.

On his quest through a series of
farm scenes printed on sturdy stock and composed of photographed animals set
into stylized painted backdrops, Duckling encounters four friends and hears six
calls, counting his own peep and his mother’s quack. Each stop features a
leading question such as “Who goes oink?”
or “Who goes neigh?” that poses
little challenge, being answered verbally in the rhymed narrative and also
visually with pictures of the proper animal both on and under a large flap.
Diapered digerati can level up at the end, though, as a set of smaller flaps
featuring only new transcribed sounds invites pressing buttons on the flanking
sound board to make an audio match before lifting the flap to see a pictorial
one. As the Romanized sounds as pronounced by a caregiver (“Meh-eh!”;“Woof!”)
are likely to sound quite different from the recorded sounds, opportunities for
conversation between children and adults abound. The sound chip uses one
(replaceable) battery, and there is a tiny, probably toddler proof, on/off
switch.

A durable farm visit for children at
the “point, hear, and name” stage. (Novelty board book. 6 mos.-2)