Elmo's Animal Mix & Match

My son received Elmo's Animal Mix & Match as a gift from his aunt.  This book is authored by Carol Monica and Joe Mathieu.  It was published in February 2008 and is 12 pages long.  It is recommend for children ages 4 - 8. 

My son is 2 1/2 and he loves this book so much.  In fact, we have to read it every night over and over.

Each page of Elmo's Animal Mix & Match is divided into 3 sections.  One section for the head, one for the body, and one for the feet.  On each page Elmo is dressed as a different animal - monkey, penguin, pig, alligator, bear, and lion.  Since each page is divided, you are able to mix and match the animals that Elmo is dressed as.  For example, Elmo can have a monkey head, a penguin body, and pig's feet.  There are over 200 combinations.  

The story is also cut into sections so it makes sense if you read it the animal's mixed up.  For example, in the combination above the story would read: "Elmo imagines he's a lion shaking his furry mane in the cold Antarctic flapping his flippers which Bert feeds the chickens next to the pig pen."  

As you can imagine you get some funny combinations and even funnier stories.

As an added bonus, a fun, educational fact is included about each animal.  This really helps the kids learn something new and fun about that particular animal.

I would have gladly given this book a 5 rating across the board if it wasn't for the poor construction quality.  The book only lasted a few days before it started falling apart.  The binding is horrible and the cut pages start falling out of the binding.  Since my son loves the book so much, I order two more from Amazon and got creative in reinforcing the binding.

Overall this is a great book and is fun for children of all ages.  I can only hope they find some way of fixing the binding to make a sturdier book.