Bernard, Me, and the Letter B

Lets talk mom to mom. Or mom to dad. Or mom to caring book buyer... This is my first time bringing home one of the "Alphabet Friends" series and I have to say that I am *very impressed*. This book has a lot going for it. It uses bold text and color to draw attention to the letter "b" in all of it's forms. The book points out that "b" can be found anywhere within a word: beginning, middle, end. In addition, at the very beginning where the letter "b" is introduced, there are two huge letter Bb's (they cover the whole page) in the background. I took my preschoolers finger and traced those letters so he could feel what they are like, as well as see them. From there the book introduces pictorial representations of words (rebuses) so that even older toddlers can get the feel and idea of what it is like to read. Having said all this wonderful stuff, I have to add that there is no way that I would buy this book, or buy into this series. My goodness, at $21 dollars a book that would be well over $546 US dollars for the set-and that's not counting shipping!! [We got the same results for the entire alphabet from a Leapfrog video for under 10 bucks.] Four Stars. Good concept, but pricey.