Noodle

by Marison Billet

Attracted by its bright colors and cute characters, my toddler picked out these two books about a little panda bear from the library. One shows the bear doing activities at home, the other has him at the beach. It's those touch-and-feel kind of books. The first one, Noodle Loves to Cuddle, shows the bear pulling a fuzzy duck toy, playing with a ball that has plastic texture with raised bumps, talking on a toy phone and playing with his blankie, which covers his face. This is my daughter's favorite page, although she used to be concerned that the panda was upside-down.

Noodle Loves the Beach has one of the most unique touch-and-feel features I've ever seen. It has a rough patch for sand, sparkly blue material for water, the cloth sail of a boat (which you can lift to find a cute bunny) And one page has the bear eating a sticky peach, and the peach sufrace is actually sticky. Like the backside of an old sticker might be. It's a very realistic peach color, too. A little gross, as by this time the sticky surface had caught lots of little specks of things (and being a library book that could be more disturbing but I don't think about it too much). My toddler finds this page most intriguing and will spend a good several minutes poking the peach surface with her finger.

Both books end with a mirror on the last page where your child can see her face (if a bit unclearly). My kid really likes these books, will even ask for them by name ("Bear! Bear!"). They don't have many pages but the illustrations are cute, fun for kids, and the pages are very sturdy. It's one where I don't have to worry about the flap getting torn off, as the lift-able parts are cloth and securely sandwiched between the board layers of the page, instead of being heavy stock paper glued atop it as you often see.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 10 pages, 2011