Review Detail

READ-AND-PLAY ROCKET is an engaging and informative board book about the journey to space. The book features a different topic on each page spread, including information about the way we have traveled to the moon, astronaut training, astronauts to know, and more. The book makes a circle with a velcro dot that adheres the front and back cover together, fanning out the pages.

What I loved: The book has a great amount of information that will work well for elementary school aged readers. The pages have quite a bit of text on them, presenting a lot of information/topics, which is a great introduction to space travel for young readers. The book can be read piecemeal with each spread having its own topic, so this works well for kids who like to digest it slowly and/or randomly. Although small, the font is clear and easy to read throughout, with key color changes between black and white to suit the background colors. The illustrations are also great throughout with a realistic look that works very well and a nice use of color.

What left me wanting more: As a small thing, one of the coolest elements of the book is that it could turn into a toy - although it makes a circle, it does not really work as a toy or look like a rocket. It has the general shape, but with the way the pages fan out, it does not really capture it. The pages also don't have any kind of cohesive images to give the illusion of a ship, so it really just doesn't work well as a rocket toy. Although it's a board book, this will work better for young elementary school aged kids, and feels a bit dense to read front-to-back. That being said, something nice about this is that it is easy to read a random page or two at a time without missing anything, as they are not necessarily connected.

Final verdict: READ-AND-PLAY ROCKET is an informative and interesting board book about outer space travel that will work well for early elementary school aged readers.