Customer Reviews

Eco Babies Wear Green

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is cool. I'm trying to teach my son to be responsible for the environment and this is an awesome book for getting those ideas across without being preachy, just fun. So happy I bought it.

Our family has really enjoyed this book as we continue to collect the series. The Illustrations are fantastic and the writing still has such great double meaning. I love how accurate the kids version of "green" is!

Teaching our daughter to be environmentally friendly is very important to my husband and I, this book allows us to start at a young age and it is such a fun read!

this is such a cute book. I love it and so does my son. Love the eco babies carpool part - as we commute to day care and to work on a bicycle. We were given this book as a gift, but later went out and got the whole series.

Adorable board book we bought for my new baby niece. My 3-year-old daughter loves reading it every time we visit her cousin, too!

This book is so adorable, I love to read it to my son and tell him how as an Eco Baby he does all of the fun things in the book whether he realizes it or not. Very adorable and would be a great gift for any Eco mom you know.

My nephew immediately loved seeing the babies and recognizable shapes on the pages (diapers, strawberries, turning off the lamp to go to sleep). It has replaced Goodnight Moon (!) to become his new bedtime book.

I understand why Grandpa picked this up at the bookstore - it's super-cute, cute illustrations, & it's about being "eco" which seems is perfect for us.

But after reading a couple of these books, they bother me a bit. It's clear the "eco babies" series is just a marketing scheme to sell to parents & grandparents, and not really written for children. And there's nothing in here that affirms the child, either.

Nothing in here is *really* about being environmental - values that drive our daily decisions. Instead it's mostly making jokes about being environmental (a child pouring Cheerios on the floor is called "composting"). Nobody *really* learns anything about composting, being green, etc.

Additionally, these jokes may be funny for mom & dad - but young children do not understand abstractions or social irony. And, the illustrations don't contain enough context for children to interpret or understand. There's a joke about "carpooling" by riding a bike with mom (again, child won't get this joke, or understand the social issues behind carpooling). But the illustration only shows the top of the bike tire - not enough context for a child to interpret the illustration.

Your child will laugh at the book if you are laughing. But they will not learn anything. For me, when I'm picking out books for my child, my own entertainment is not the issue. My values are: making sure the book is age-appropriate, that my child is engaged, and that she is being affirmed &/or learning something.

Okay, up front I will admit that I am not known for my PC speech or thought. I usually say what I mean, regardless of what others think. Hey, I don't have an ulcer. That said, I admire much of what Tricycle Press publishes and I will admit that Michelle Sinclair Colman's Eco Babies Wear Green is a cute baby board book.

But something inside of me just doesn't want to go green with the reading I do with my grandchildren. I hold that for our everyday life through example.

I want to read them wonderful, exciting stories about adventurous kids, dragons, fairy princesses (yes, I said fairy princesses--so there!) pigeons that shouldn't drive a bus and when they're older, I want them to cut their teeth on that young Brit kid who saves the world and conquers `the name that will not be spoken.'

Oh well, maybe talking with my 6-month-old granddaughter, Greer, about eco babies wearing green isn't so bad. And she already loves nature, her mother carpools, we ride bikes, buy from the local farmer's market, save water, turn off the lights and recycle, so we're doing pretty well. We just need to focus on the page that talks about composting.

Armchair Interviews says: Following the `green' wave - cute.