Color Surprises: Color Surprises

Chuck Murphy is a treasure. Children and adults alike will thrill to the magical images revealed with the lift of a flap or the pull of a tab. A pink flamingo, purple butterflies, a blue parrot .... these are just three of the beautiful images that pop up, and the multi-colored finale never fails to elicit a squeal of delight from our two-year old. We have given several of Mr. Murphy's books as gifts and they are always appreciated, even by kids who normally prefer mechanical toys to books. Two of the pages use tab manipulatives and are a bit more difficult for young children.

Its joined his list of favorites -- He reads it a dozen times at a sitting and has learned to pull the tabs and open the flaps albeit with a little supervision so that he doesn't get carried away and try and pull those amazing images off the page. The only delicate one is the green pull tab of the snake. I've had to fix that twice in the last month. Its so beautiful, I don't mind experiencing it umpteen times a day with my son. Its incredibly educational too -- He's already learned to make tiger sounds!!!

My 18-month-old son and I both fell in love with this book at first sight. Between the deceitfully simple black-and-white covers lie the many artistically created surprises. My son loves to flip the solid-colored flaps--under considerate supervision so that he does not tear the delicate figures--to see what's hidden behind and has never ceased to be amazed. As he pages through the book, he would say the names of the featured animals that he has learned, "tigger" "fish" ... he would sit there and look at this book for a dozen times or more, and he always comes back to ask to read it the next day. The beautifully designed and perfectly crafted surprises have really impressed him. It delights as well as teaches. An excellent book for kids as well as "big people" who love good books. I am getting a few more copies for friends with young children. (p.s. Murphy`s "one to ten pop-up surpises" is just as wonderful and enchanting, but a little bit too delicate for our little guy's fingers to handle--to pull, to dial, etc., so I always need to help him with that one.)

My 13 month old daughter is so fascinated with this book she touches but doesn't pull (rip, tear, shred, etc.). She has torn apart other pop up books but this one is truly special. I would highly recommend this book for 10 month and up with adult supervision. There are a few colors (green, black/white, come to mind) that do require more manual dexterity than a very small child has but in general it is very well suited for pre-preschool kids.

My toddler (age 2 years and 1 month) loves this book. It's brightly colored and simple, but the pop-up sections give her little hands something to do and the pictures are delightful. The entire book is deceptively simple, actually: a very young child can laugh at the pictures, an older one can make the animal noises, and an older one yet can name the colors and each figure.I also like the fact that the pop-ups are fairly strong, so they don't rip easily.Highly recommended.