Baby Touch: Food Board book – Big Book, 1 April 2021

Too expensive and limited number of pages for the baby to explore. Food items and variety shown is very less. Only 1 food item per page has a touch feeling and creative texture to it and other are just pictures. Disappointing product.

You cannot please all of the people all of the time, but this is not my favourite format for a book of this kind and it is already looking scruffy round the edges with the 'watermelon tab' lightly scratched on the cover.Relatively weighty in hand, measuring around 25.75 cm square with rounded corners, it is on the large side for little hands to manipulate and not particularly eye catching, IMO.The ‘faces’ are limited in ‘draw-the-eye’ appeal and the ‘touch-and-feel’ factor is a lightly raised plastic-type area that is sometimes slightly squishy on pressing, a glittery (non-drop) or lightly ridged area ~ all of which are not that obvious + the ‘messy pasta’ has a shiny red splodge on the top, which is easily scratched, removing a surface coating on the copy I received.ooOooFrom the back cover:🍉‘Name and touch the different foods, from healthy fruit to yummy treats!With textured patches to touch, feel and explore, this bright and beautiful board book with grabbable tabs will engage young children from birth upwards.’A note about cleaning (image below refers):🟠 ~ ‘FABRIC TEXTURES ARE SURFACE WASHABLE ONLY.Please use a damp cloth to clean. Water could damage the book, be careful to keep it protected when cleaning the fabric textures.’ooOooThe thick cover opens to 5 double page spreads with the subject at the top, namely:~ Breakfast~ Snacks~ Lunch~ Dinner~ Dessert...with a selection of related foods on the left-hand side, one of which is textured/partly textured.On the right-hand page is the name of the ‘grabbable tab’, namely:~ egg~ orange~ cheese~ broccoli(the ‘watermelon’ is featured on the last double page spread rather than the first, as you might expect.)Also on the right-hand page is a main food item, with a 'touch & feel' area, along with a command at the foot of the page such as:~🥞 ‘Baby, touch the squishy pancakes.’(...which, frankly, could be anything on a plate, also IMO).This pattern carries on through the pages with the extra dimension offered of spotting the ladybird in each ‘scene’. 🐞[14 images attached ©️ Ladybird Books Ltd/2021]

When I first looked at this book it seemed to be bright and colourful with lots of different textures in it so I sat down to look at this book with 18 month and 25 month old boys thinking that they would be really interested in it as they usually like touchy feely ones. However I was wrong as it didn't hold their interest for as long as I had thought it would and they had tired of this book before reaching the end.This book consists of pictures for 5 different meals with each meal being given a double page spread. There are food shaped tabs at the top or side of each page but I feel that they make it more difficult for little hands to turn the pages with.m On the dinner pages the fish has a shiny glittery look to it which is ok, the tomato sauce on top of the spag bol has a uninteresting metallic shiny appearance whilst the green rind of the watermelon is actually appealingly iridescent,, There are also a variety of textures throughout this book including squishy, corrugated, embossed or course but they just didn't have the same appeal as traditional touchy feely books for my two boys.

A nice touch book is great for babies and toddlers as it introduces them to the idea of sharing books, but also helps develop their senses. My youngest is a little older, but still likes to play with books that have touch elements or flaps. This 'Baby Touch: Food' is an excellent quality book that has lots of little squashy elements to press, but also lets you talk about the idea of meals.The book is bigger than most touch books and has flaps at the top shaped like different foodstuffs. On each double spread is some of the food you would expect and one large picture with a touch element. It is all very clear and colourful. It appeals to a child and can also be used by a child learning to read to practise come of their words. This is a very high-quality touch book.

First impressions were that this was a really sturdy board book, it’s a great size and has lots of simple drawings of loads of different foods, really eye catching, even for babies.I was a bit disappointed by the so called ‘textures’ on each page, most are just small areas of plastic, with a couple of corrugated areas and some glitter. There’s so much more effort that could have been put in to make this a hundred times better but unfortunately it falls a bit short in the interactive element.A lot of the food has cute little faces and my grandson loves it when I point out the different items so it’s effective in that way, I just don’t class it as a touchy, feely book.Hope you found my review helpful