GLASSES TO GO

A clever concept presents a variety of different faces and separate pairs of glasses to try on each, executed with eye-catching graphics designed to appeal to hip young parents.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to imagine a board-book–age child understanding the concepts or being able to manipulate the pieces of this book. Bright blue, black, gray, white and silver graphics highlight different kinds of glasses for a variety of positions and uses: a pilot, a rock star, for reading, for calculating, for "someone totally FAB," for someone looking for romance, for a birthday party. Cutouts of seven styles of glasses are included in a pocket in the front, to be inserted in a very small tab on the corresponding page. However, only five slots are available to receive tabs, and inserting the tab requires a degree of manual dexterity that is not realistic for young children. Fortunately, once inserted, the glasses seem to stay inserted, even with repeated page turns. Some of the metaphors (“true love is blind,” for example) are also beyond the understanding of literal-minded young children.

Still, parents of children with new glasses prescriptions may find this novelty useful for their home libraries—public libraries will want to give it a miss.