We've seen technology innovate at a rapid rate these past years, and children's books are no expection! Simple push buttons for sound effects have been replaced with card readers and cards that can produce a hundred sound effects per book. Remember the books that came with plastic CD players and around 3 mini plastic CDs to add music to the reading experience? These have now been replaced with (or should I say, upgraded to?) a plastic iPod!
I couldn't resist buying Dora's Music to Go for my music-loving little one. The book features lyrics and pictures for 20 songs, all of which can be heard through the music player attached to the book. The player has a small screen showing simple, pixel animation in order to identify each song. Songs can be chosen via a click wheel. There are also 3 control buttons available - Start, Shuffle, and Stop. Honestly, think iPod for nursery rhymes. Browsing through the pictures in the board book while listening to the tunes will give you the story behind this Dora musical adventure, but if your baby just wants to sing, you can opt to detach the toy and give your child his/her own portable music player!
Other books that caught my eye were those that came with a mini-steering wheel and controls for car/train adventure stories. There was even a Mickey Mouse book with a baby laptop embedded in it. At nearly P1000 per copy, though, I could only afford the Dora adventure and allowed my daughter to pick up a Barney book as well (this had a simple selection of around 6 sound effects, but it's just so hard to find Barney books!). Ah, to be back in the days when I threw a tantrum after my mother refused to buy me a P25 Ladybird book (A Little Princess - I eventually got it ;))!
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