Where's Kiwi NOW? product reviews

Where's kiwi now is a great look and find book that has kept my children entertained for hours already and I get the feeling they are nowhere near done with it yet as there are still many things to find. With more than eight hundred items to spot over ten different scenes, this book is packed full of great illustrations and humorous scenarios. The thing I love about look and find books aren't only the things listed to find but the funny situations happening in the scene itself. This book is great for showcasing New Zealand identity as well from the likes of Gumboot guy, Mystery moa, tricky tuatara and many more.

Books like this stand out very well for children because of the vibrant colours and so much for them to explore. These books are great in the way that they also double as a game when my children race to see who can find the items the fastest or who can find the most. I consider myself quite observant but never seem to be able to beat them at finding the required things. This book particularly is good for younger children compared to the likes of Where's Wally because the illustrations are not being drawn too small, the scene too big or too much of one thing that is very similar.

I recommend this book to parents who want something to keep their children entertained and to help teach them to focus and observe. I will keep my eye out (no pun intended) for other books similar to this or in this series.

As a child I used to learn look and find books, I remember at one stage they were all the rage and during my classes weekly library visits there was always a mad rush amongst us all to see who could find the look and find books first so that they could take them home for the week. My daughter has just turned 5 and has been enjoying look and find books for a while now, although the ones we have at home have now been read and read again so much so that she can now find the hidden objects straight away, mind you the ones which we have are aimed at a younger audience and so that items are a bit easier to find.

When I saw Where's Kiwi NOW? up for review I knew this would be a book which Miss 5 would absolutely love, not only was it a look and find book but it also featured a Kiwi, something which she is currently obsessed with as her class has spent the last term learning all about Kiwi's and all things New Zealand. The book has a hard cover which is great as it means it will most likely last a lot longer than that of a paper back book, and as I work in a daycare and was taking this along to share with the preschoolers it is great to know it wont get ruined straight away. The book features 10 different double sided pages, each with a different theme. There is a guide of what you need to look for in the back of the book for that particular page and also a list at the front of the book of characters which are hiding on each of the different pages, such as the Moa, Gumboot Guy and Kiwi.

Miss 5 and I started off by looking for the front characters and were having fun doing so, we managed to find each and everyone of them however we were a bit confused by Kiwi, as unlike the other characters he did not look like his image , which left us constantly questioning whether or not we had found the right thing. Miss 5 had a heap of fun with this book, and we enjoyed noticing and finding our own things on each of the pages and creating our own game. When I took the book to work to share the 4 year olds loved it, they spent hours with their teachers looking for all of the different objects and people. One of the teachers had a great idea which was to photocopy the list of things to find at the back of the book so that they weren't having to constantly flick backwards and forwards, I agreed this was a good idea, and perhaps one thing that the book could possibly look at doing in the future having a list on the corner of each page or a pull out poster-like page as easy reference.

Overall this was a very neat book, in which I loved the Kiwiana concept and all the neat graphics, certainly a book you could spend hours looking at and one which I intend to buy as gifts in the future.