This touchy-feely board book for babies and toddlers has five shy badgers to meet, with hairy ears, fuzzy tails and rough paws. There are bright pictures and textured patches to stroke on every page, specially designed to develop sensory and language awareness in little children. A joy to share together with little ones.
Fiona Watt is an Editorial Director and writer at Usborne Publishing. She started working at Usborne in 1989 and has written and edited hundreds of books including baby and novelty, sticker, art and craft, cookery, science and activity books. Fiona graduated from Exeter University with a B.Ed. (Hons.), specialising in Psychology and Art and Design. After university she worked as a researcher and writer for a company which published educational material for places where children went on school visits (zoos, museums, stately homes etc). She then taught seven, eight, and nine year olds for five years; three years at a state school in Sevenoaks in Kent, and two years at The British School in the Netherlands in The Hague.
Having joined Usborne in 1989, Fiona became an editorial director in 2003, largely responsible for writing baby and novelty books, as well as art and activity titles. She has written over 100 titles for Usborne Publishing, perhaps most notably the, ‘That’s not my ….‘ touchy-feely series.
My two year old is a fan of this series of books. His latest read is much the same as the others, although there are one or two new textures for him to explore.
These Usborne "Touchy-Feely" books by Fiona Watt are great for little ones in so many ways. First, each book has six textures to experience. Second, each texture is described with an adjective such as "fluffy", "rough", "woolly", "shiny", "fuzzy", "soft", and so forth. These words will enlarge the vocabulary of little ones, not to mention the noun featured in each book. In this case, how many children have even heard of a badger? Third, the little mouse to be found on each page creates a game element for children. Fourth, the dramatically presented illustrations are lively and colorful.
In this “touchy-feely” book, different badgers are shown, and the reader is told why it is not “my” badger. Each badger has a differently textured part of it, so the reader can interact with the book.
The bright and bold images are attractive to children, but more attractive is feeling the rough and soft textures of the badger built into the pages. The repetition is also helpful to build up children’s confidence in being able to read, as they can “read” the title phrase by themselves by hearing it over and over. One thing that was cute but a little unclear was if the mouse that shows up on every page was the narrator or not.
This book has it all - complex characters, an intricate plot, highly imaginative settings, badgers and a plot twist so crazy you'll question your own sense of reality. This book is literally unputdownable, even after reading it seven times in a row. As I write this review I still have the book in my other hand. Did I mention this book contains badgers?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
A cute instalment in the That’s Not My... series, but a lot of the textures were very similar so my daughter lost interest quite quickly. Very excited by the rough paws page though - was hard to fight the book away from her while she was scratching at that Velcro!
Yet another addition to the 'That's Not My...' books. They're all very much of a muchness, but my son never seems to grow tired of them. I thought this was a nice difference as we don't have badgers in New Zealand so an unusual animal for us to discuss.
Exceptional. Couldn't put it down. I've never read a book that hooked me from the start and kept me entertained for the entire book. The plot twists 10/10. Honestly would recommend it to everyone. The hidden meaning behind the story almost had me crying.