Customer Reviews

Animal Sounds

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Easy reading. Great tool to teach about farm animals and their sounds. Recommended for ages 18 months-4 years. My 2 year old loves it. She was able to identify animals by the 3rd reading, and made some of the animal sounds. My 6 year old nephew was able to read some of the words, and the others (like animal names) he figured out from the pictures. Really boasted his reading confidence. The repetition helped.

This should be considered a classic. I agree it makes a great baby gift; I have tucked it in with newborn outfits. I started reading it to my girls at 6 months old. They both love it. There are sooo many animal books out there, but this one is worth looking at.

This is our favorite baby book for reading with our baby/young child. Each of our children, from ages 9 months to three years, has loved this book. We buy this as a gift for all new babies.

My 22 month old son has loved this book from the time he was able to focus. He got it as a gift and unfortunately I left it in our doctor's office, where it was immediately adopted! I've been searching for another one since. My son loves the pictures and making the sounds with me. He especially loves the kitten with the bright eyes on the second page.

This is a rather fascinating little book for the very, very young. I note from the reviews here and on other sites that the opinion of the book; its acceptance, ranges from enthusiasm to mild apathy. It is my opinion (for what that may be worth) that quite often books of this nature; books targeted for the young, must appeal to the adult and whether or not they appeal to the young child quite often is a secondary factor. This of course is okay as I strongly feel that parents should be very involved in their child's reading habits...what they are exposed to, how hard they are "pushed," and who limited book budgets should be spent.

Now that being said....

I did just a bit of research on this one and found that it was probably first published in 1981. Since that time we have editions (reprints) from 1984, 1999 and 2005. Folks, publishers do not issue reprints or new additions unless it makes money for them and the only way to make money from books is to sell a heaping load of them. The only way a heaping load will be sold; year after year after year is if the book is good and there is a high demand for it. The only way there will be a high demand for a book is if both parents and kids like the thing. Those are simple facts. This is something to consider...i.e. "10,000 Frenchmen cannot be wrong!"

Now in my opinion this work has several things going for it. First there is the art work. The artist has used bold and vibrant colors and his portrayal of the barnyard animals is decisive. A chicken looks like a chicken, a horse like a horse and a cow like a cow and so on and on. The same hold true with the colors used - green is green, orange is orange, brown is brown, blue is blue and on and on and on. The identification of color is an important aspect of a child's learning process and many children struggle with this, even more so when various shades are added and colors are blended. Right now I am looking at two pages - those of bees and that of a crow with little birds. Right off the top of my head I can identify 15 different distinctive colors. Simply going over these two pages are a complete afternoon lesson.

Now this work is not a literary master piece nor was it meant to be. The text is quite simple. We have lines such as "What does the crow say? Caw! Caw!" or "The turkey says gobble, gobble, gobble!" Simple and direct. Each sound is absolutely identified with the animal it represents. There are a total of twenty two animals/birds/insects addressed in this work. Developing the ability to identify all these animals is yet another lesson being well taught here.

This is an odd sized book measuring 6 ½ inches by 5 inches and is about ½ inch thick. There are 21 pages in this work, not counting the cover. These pages and cover are printed on a very, very heavy stock which is thicker and more heavy that the cover of many hard back books I have seen. The binding is very tight - my point being that this book can take a tremendous amount of abuse. The entire book with illustrations if printed on slick shinny stock.

This book may or may not suit you and your child's needs, but it is most certainly one you need to take a close look at. I personally found it to be delightful and extremely useful.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

My 3 1/2 year old received this book when she was an infant and it quickly became one of our daily reads. Word for word, my oldest daughter now "reads" (from memory) this book to her 18 month old sister.....and they both LOVE every minute of it. "Animal Sounds" is a true classic in our home.

My daughter is 9 months old and she absolutely loves this book! The pictures are big, colorful and wonderful--and it really gives me the opportunity to make the various sounds of all the animals, and she just gets such a kick out of it! She picks it out and we read it together everyday and now she's starting to understand the animal sounds outside of the "book context." I'm amazed by her interest in it! I highly recommend "Animal Sounds."

My two sons, and now my grandson have all loved this book. They request(ed) it by handing it to me and plopping down in my lap. Over and over and over. Eventually they make the animal sounds, you just supply the prompts. It is very cute. It is not sophisticated in any way, shape or form. But it is kid tested and approved.

This book is a simple introduction to animals and the sounds they make. The pictures are bright and cheerful, which is nice. The text is simple - as a matter of fact, it's a little TOO simple and there's no rhythm or rhyme to the book at all. "What does the dog say? Arf arf...The cat says "meow meow"...The little mouse says "squeeeak." Overall, it's a decent addition to any tot's farm book library but really nothing special, and parents looking to glean any small amount of entertainment from their children's books (a la Richard Scarry or Sandra Boynton) will be sadly disappointed.

This was the first book I ever bought for my first child 14 years ago. It quickly became a family favorite and has since been through 5 children. It is falling apart, finally, so I've been looking for a good animal book to replace it whenever I'm in a bookstore. But so far, I have not found one that I like anywhere near as well as this one. It finally occurred to me to look on Amazon for the same book, and I was thrilled to find that it is still available.