Customer Reviews

Richard Scarry's Best First Book Ever!

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

our daughter, who is 17 months, requests this book at least once a day. she has learned many of the action words, in addition to identifying pictures. the 'scenes' organize an infant's thoughts to associate the pictures with the backgrounds. this book is outstanding.

We first saw this book at the library and of course brought it home. My two-year-old daughter loved it right away; she especially likes Huckle Cat and Lowly Worm. It is a nice big size with so much to see on each page, children are instantly captivated. Each two-page spread focuses on a different background, for example, shopping at the grocery store, going to the doctor, a cut-away of a house showing each room, a day at school, etc. One page demands that the reader turn the book lengthwise to view a blow-up of Huckle Cat, with the body parts labeled. My daughter instantly thought it was meant to be a page from a calendar, and it was her favorite page to look at. This book is fun for parents to read to their little ones--I highly recommend it!

I am a big fan of Richard Scary's and we have a broad collection of his "Best Ever" books and videos, but this is the single item that I feel isn't done well. First of all, it is so large it's unwieldy with even one small child in your lap. But the real problem is in the layout. There are 2 kinds of pages: a single large picture that contains small items, like a large house with characters and activities within it, or a big white sheet with 40 or 50 small individual pictures crammed in. The house type are great, but regrettably few. The majority are the second, and so cluttered that it is very difficult for younger preschoolers--much less babies--to differentiate between images. The effect is a wild cacophony of confusing colors, cars, cutlery, and emotional little pigs cluttering the pages.

My family much prefers Scary's "Best Storybook Ever." Smaller (at about 10" by 7" instead of 12" by 10") but much thicker, this book is easier to manage in size and matter. I disagree with its recommendation for only slightly older children, because it still contains colors, numbers, shapes, animals, counting, manners, emotions, activities, months of the year, and the alphabet, but this time with more spacing and order. I think all it is missing from "First Book" is body parts. A collection of little storybooks about the above subjects, it has fewer and clearer concepts per page. In addition, "Storybook" also contains 82 actual character stories for the older preschooler/younger grade-schooler, as well as a good collection of Mother Goose rhymes. "Best Storybook Ever" will grow with your child, teach your child, and entertain your child much better than "Best First Book Ever" will.

This is a great book, I agree. However, it is not the best FIRST book unless your child isn't seeing any books until age 2. My daughter just turned one, and for her the pictures are still too busy. Also, it's not a board book so she can't "read" this book herself without risking the pages. I know we'll enjoy it later, but for now this book has been put away.

I got this book for my son when he was one. By the time he turned two, the book had been used so much it fell to pieces. Every night we heard "Richard Scarry book! Richard Scarry book!" I, too, grew up with Richard Scarry and remember spending hours looking at each page--there's so much to see! It is certainly a busy book, keeping little eyes busy spotting lots of everyday things while following the Cat family (and, of course, Lowly Worm) through their daily activities and adventures. Also, if your child enjoys this book, I recently got the Richard Scarry Biggest Word Book Ever (and it IS at 2 ft. tall)...this book has very similiar--in places even the same--scenes as this Best First Book, but it's fun to sit on, too.

I don't agree with the reviewer that says this book is too cluttered. The book is a little big and an unsupervised toddler will destroy it quickly, but it is a fabulous, I mean FABULOUS book particularly for the price. Sure there are lots of things on each page, but I think the depth is just wonderful. The pages that are "white" with lots of things are wonderful. For example one page is a market full of different fruits and vegetables, meats, canned items, shipping carts. Another page forces you to turn the book sideways and a huge cat with all the body parts labeled takes up both pages. Another page is a doctor's office. Another page has vehicles. Another page has the alphabet. Another page is full of water craft. Another page is a farm complete with vegetable fields and several different types of machinery. Another page has the months of the year with seasonal drawings. We don't pick this book up and read it front to rear, rather we open a few random pages and marvel at Richard Scarry's mind!

I have bought over 100 children's books the last two years and this is at the top of my list. The book is packed with pages with illustrations that are up and beyond the average child's illustrated book. Richard Scarry was a wonderful artist with a keen understanding of children's minds.

Every single page has between ten and thirty items in context that my child is familiar with or we have experienced. My child stares at the pages longer than any other book and seems to just love this book.

I just checked the Amazon price and I can't believe how little it costs compared to the other books I've bought.

As busy as the pages appear, there is so much going on for a child to first look at, parents to read, and then, later, child can read to his/her younger siblings. Scarry's books were favorites in our house!

This book and the First Word Book were my first Richard Scarry books, and two of the first books I ever had. They were wonderful! Each page is full of detailed illustrations of everyday items and their names. I had most of the Richard Scarry books, and they really helped me to learn vocabulary, and quite a few important lessons on behavior along the way! Now I am a mommy, and I can't wait for my little girl to be old enough to get her Best First Book Ever!

My 3 year old recieved this as a birthday gift and she loves to look at all the busy things going on it it! Its one of my favorites too!

Until recently, I had never heard of Richard Scarry, but my wife grew up reading his books. So, she decided that Scarry's "Best First Book Ever!" would be an appropriate Christmas gift for our book-loving almost-2-year-old daughter. Well, my wife certainly nailed this gift recommendation.

Our daughter can't get enough of this book, requesting that we read it several times every day. And there is enough content in the book to last us that many daily readings without getting overly repetitive and boring. The book consists of a number of different scenes in the life of a family of cats, including driving into town, cleaning the house, shopping for groceries, playing in the school playground, stopping at a railroad crossing, landscaping outside their house, preparing meals, and many others. If we read every word and looked at every picture, I'm sure it would take well over an hour to read, but since it doesn't have a plot-driven story connecting one page to the next, we can read the book at whatever pace we like. Sometimes, we spend a lot of time on just a few pages, looking at all of the pictures and reading through the many different words and descriptions. Other times, we go through every single page but only spend a few seconds glancing at each page. Truly, no reading has been quite the same, and the breadth of content is what makes this book so utterly unique.

Initially, I was overwhelmed by this book. But now understanding that we can experience it differently each time (according to our daughter's preferences or our time constraints), I am fully on board. She loves it, and we do, too, and I suspect that Richard Scarry will enter the short list of our favorite authors.