Learn about puppets and parades.
The illustrations are cute. It's just a fun story, with all successes and no failures, which is kind of nice.
Puppets can be anything you imagine them to be.
Tedious lift-the-flap book.
It's just supposed to be a lift-the-flap book, but I think by the time the kids are old enough to lift the flaps without just tearing them to shreds, they're kind of beyond this. Maybe most kids aren't as destructive as mine was.
Baby animals are born in the spring.
Just a dog and her ball.
It's a sweet, wordless book. The illustrations are incredibly good at getting across the emotions of the dog.
Helping others makes them feel good.
Pretending random things children do are planned.
It's a little bit humorous to see it set off as if she had considered the implications ahead of time and came to that decision, but it doesn't work as well as the followup book, 11 Experiments That Failed.
None.
Jingoistic nonsense.
It's not going to teach anybody the alphabet, and it's not really interesting. I mean, the things it talks about are important, but there is just so much text crammed onto every page in little, tiny locations.
America is the best. America is awesome.
A weird legend without a point.
Nothing happens at the end. Nothing changes. They don't get anything from their experience except a story to tell.
None.
Ancient China is a terrible place.
It's kind of like the adventure is thrown in for the sake of adventure. There's no character development, there's no real interesting story line, it's just them fleeing constantly.
Ancient China is interesting. Or, don't open magic books.
Toys can be sad too. Or not.
Instead of just complaining to the bear that he looks sad, they actually try to cheer him up. They're clearly all well-meaning about it.
People aren't always sad even if they look sad. Or, don't jump to conclusions based on how someone looks.
Don't do this to your kids.
What?! This isn't... bad... it's just stupid. So there's a realistic problem, and a stupid resolution to it. It's not harmful, but it's not helpful.
Babies take a lot of attention.
Intelligent doughnuts and the implications thereof.
I don't think it would upset children. I don't think children would understand the implications of this. Maybe I'm just weird-- no. No. The book is definitely weird. It's not me.
None. It defies morals.
