We love books in our house and my kids are fans of animal books and search books so when Miles Kelly asked if we would like a copy of their Super Search Books – Where is the Bear and On the Trail of the Whale I immediately said yes.
Both books are written in the same style. The story begins with the kids being told that they need to help an animal search for their friend (Otto the Octopus is searching for his friend Hula the Whale and Suki an Arctic rabbit is searching for Ping a Panda Bear). The front covers of both books unfolds to reveal a list of animals and as the kids read the book they can tick the animals that they find on the list – my son LOVED this part). In fact I have found him paging through the books by himself searching for the animals and re-ticking them on the lists – we used white board marker pens and just wiped the ticks off afterwards so that the kids could redo the activity.
On each double page spread the search goes to a new location – on Where is the Bear it starts in Greenland goes onto Alaska then California and continues around the world until it ends up in a bamboo forest in China. So as the kids are searching for the missing animals they are also learning about the different animals that live in different areas and even where the areas are (we kept showing my youngest on a map where the area was located). The back cover also folds out and in both books it reveals a map of the world and shows the kids the path that the search took them on.
There are no scary scenes in the books and in both books the missing animal is found. Both books have lovely illustrations and should not frighten or upset a sensitive child (this is always a big deal for us as my oldest can get very frightened by stories that we read).
Also while they are reading the books little challenges pop up. Both kids enjoyed this as it made the books very interactive and they really ended up getting involved in the stories.
My eight year old did read the book with her younger brother but I do think it is more age appropriate for my youngest who is 5.5 (plus is he slightly obsessed about learning animal facts).
So in case you are wondering if I had not been given these books would I actually go out and buy them – my answer is YES. I would definitely buy these books for my son.
As I mentioned in the beginning we were sent both these books by Miles Kelly in exchange for me including them in a blog post.
ofamily learning together 
These books do sound fabulous and it would be rewarding to see more printed along these lines….geography made interesting!
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