Review: It's Cute for Free
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 1, 2013
Spoiler AlertAs an adult, several of the nonsensical animals made me chuckle.  But that is because I understand the humor involved.  The "Aarkvaard," for example, as a play on an aardvark is cute.  It's even cuter when you think about the details.  The picture shows a dog-like animal with two heads, one at each end of its body.  The subtle reference to Noah's Ark, with pairs of animals, along with the way the eyes of the respective ends of the body are looking at each other also made me chuckle.  Another animal is the "Velcrow."  According to the book, "Velcrows fly around stuck together."  But there are other examples that just fell flat, such as the "Umptor," a giraffe with a short neck.  The illustrations are done very nicely.The book touts itself as being for "all ages!"  As a traditional alphabet book, however, I would grant it only 2 stars because the "animals" do not exist in reality.  Part of the purpose of an alphabet book is to teach children about letter patterns through examples that are familiar to them.I downloaded the book during a free promotion, and I like it.  But I wouldn't use it for very small children because the humor is just too subtle for that age group.  Overall, I'd rate the book at 3.5 stars, and since it was free, I'll round that up to four stars.