Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Details are fudged, December 28, 2007
Durability:2.0 out of 5 stars Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars Educational:2.0 out of 5 stars
I have a curious child who enjoys looking at my osteology textbooks from college. I got this puzzle thinking, "Yay, it'll be fun for us to work on together, and I won't have to worry about her ruining my $100 book!" But now that I've seen this puzzle up close, I'd rather let her scrunch up the pages than waste time with this puzzle again.
As another reviewer mentioned, both sides of the puzzle have the same color background, and there is lots of negative space around the anatomical figure...this means that there are lots of blank pieces that are blue on both sides. (One side is slightly flatter than the other, but this is a very subtle difference--not enough for most people to go on.) It is frustrating enough for an adult to put together, let alone a child.
Furthermore, details are sketchy. On the organs side of the puzzle, not all the systems of the body are represented, and the ones that are depicted seem half-hearted. The esophagus appears to start somewhere in the thoracic cavity, then bypass the stomach and go straight to the intestines, for example.
As for the skeleton side, it looks to me as if the illustrator looked at a picture of a skeleton long enough to get the shapes of the bones mostly right, but couldn't figure out how the joints are put together, and so faked them by drawing lots of weird knobs of bone. The elbows are FUBAR. The foot on the right hand side has no heel bone, and the ankle on that side is fused--the tibia and talus look like one long, misshapen bone (yet on the other ankle they are shown as 2 separate bones...strange), and the right and left shoulder are constructed differently too (both wrong).
If a real person had a skeleton like this, he wouldn't be able to walk or bend his elbows, he'd always be dislocating his shoulders, he'd have trouble turning his head from side to side, and it would probably hurt to sit down.
People will think I'm being too nit-picky, but hey, I'm just laying it out for you. It really comes down to what you want your kid(s) to get out of a product like this. If all you want is vague, rote knowledge of where various body parts are, then go ahead and buy this. If you want your child to be able to understand how parts of the body fit together and see how they work, save your money for one of those neat models made by people who GET anatomy.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
good puzzle, but the two sided-ness is confusing, July 4, 2007
Durability:4.0 out of 5 stars Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars
I think the picture is terrific for kids, and the puzzle is very sturdy, but it wasn't clear to me when I ordered it that there were two sides. That discouraged my child from trying to assemble it. I wish it had been two different colors, at least.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Fun for all Ages, September 23, 2008
Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars Educational:4.0 out of 5 stars
I ordered this product for my special needs clasess and they enjoy it alot! I am able to get them to work together as well as having a lesson to go along with the puzzles. This is great for school and home use!
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