Review: My Animal Family

As a part of the Homeschool Crew this year, I received a copy of My Animal Family Nanuq, a picture book all about polar bears. My Animal Family has four picture books to choose from: Ella (elephants), Leo (lions), Korow (chimpanzee) and Nanuq (a baby polar bear). Designed for children ages 3 to 9, each hardback book is beautifully illustrated, with concise, well-written text that is very engaging for children. Along with the book, your child will enjoy a live-action DVD that features real video footage of the featured animal. In addition, My Animal Family has an activity website, which, upon purchasing the story book your child will gain access to. We were able to access the website once, and were pleased with the activities there, but when we tried to access it again, we were unable to log on despite multiple attempts. I am unsure as to whether this is a problem on my end or something with the company. Nevertheless, for $12.99, you are getting a good value even without the website portion.

Things we liked:

--the book has very pretty illustrations, and a good story line, which is both factual and brings the polar bears in the story alive for your child.

--the book and DVD, I found were both well thought out and fun for the children. The DVD features polar bear footage, a song about polar bears and polar bear fun facts (Did you know that a polar bears hair is actually clear, not white?).

--$12.99 is not a bad price for a hardback children's book and a DVD.

Things that were disappointing:

--Despite multiple attempts to access the web activities after our initial try, I was not able to do so, and although I sent in for a new password, I never received one.

My take: I personally really liked this book, and I am totally the type of person who would collect all four for my kids or as gifts. The DVD was really cute (narrated by Nanuq himself!)! ;) However, the fact that I could not access the website was disappointing for my children. I would contact the company personally to find out the reason behind this problem before deciding to purchase another from their series. Assuming they responded to me in a timely manner and with a good explanation, I would purchase more of these books.

Disclaimer: I was given a copy of this book for review purposes. No other compensation was given, and all opinions are mine.