Usborne Books Independent Consultant Anna Pry sent me Usborne Books for inclusion in my gift guide. All opinions are my own.

I have nostalgia for a lot of books from my childhood. Several of the ones that evoke those warm and fuzzy feelings are ones that were unique in some way. For example, I remember having a book with scratch and sniff pages that I loved. I also had several lift-the-flap books that were special to me. In middle-school I grew really fond of choose your own adventure books. A little creativity can go a long way to help get a child deeply interested in a book.

Usborne Books has a great selection of books for children as well as activity books, games, puzzles, craft kits and more. Many of their books have unique little features that will grab a child’s interest. I was sent several Usborne items and I was impressed with how sturdy and well crafted each of them seems. I had no experience with Usborne until this review but I will definitely come back to this company for more because their items have really impressed me. Here are the items I am gifting this year:

Busy Helicopter Book. This is a thick book that comes with a toy helicopter that you pull back to let it propel itself forward. The pages in this book were designed really thick so that they could carve out tracks for the helicopter wheels. You can use the helicopter toy in the tracks on the four page spreads. I have a nephew who loves emergency vehicles of all kinds so I know this will get him excited.

The Usborne Activities Sticker Dressing Activity Pack is a unique set that I know my nephews will enjoy. There are four books inside of the outer case. One book is knight themed, one soldiers themed, one sports themed and one pirates themed. Each book has several pages of stickers, and then a few pages of people. For example, in the Knights book there are lots of stickers with various pieces of armor and swords, and the pages feature knights wearing their casual clothing. Kids can take the armor stickers to “dress up” the men on the pages.

I chose the Sticker Dolly Dressing Design Studio Fashion kit for one of my pre-teen nieces. This kit includes stickers, stencils, rub-down transfers, patterned papers, a design book and pens. This kit will appeal to creative girls who like clothing or just creating in general. It has everything girls need to get creative with designing their own clothing and fashion designs.

I am so excited to share the Press-Out Paper Dolls book with my niece as well. I had a magazine show up when I was a girl that had one page in it that was card stock material and had a doll with two punch out dresses. I was so fascinated by the concept and remember wishing I had more. This book is quite large in size and includes four dolls and over 50 outfits! There is also a thick fold-out piece behind the front cover that unfolds into a spread that looks like a girls bedroom complete with reading nook. This is a fun space to pretend-play with your completed paper dolls.

My nephew Gabe loves service careers such as firemen, policemen, EMT’s and so on. Like almost all kids he also loves stickers. I feel like the Usborne Activities Sticker Dressing Emergency Services book was almost made just for him. I was surprised to see how large it is in person, it’s over a foot tall. It has over 200 stickers as well as pages that create scenes so that you can finish the scene by adding stickers. For example, putting fire equipment on firemen. I know he will love this book and at $8.99 I think it’s a great value too. I also chose the Rescue Missions book which is extremely similar, featuring soldiers, EMT’s and Firemen in rescue situations.

Firefighters is a small book that features photos of real firefighters as well as computer-made graphics that depict fires or other emergency scenes. The text on each page is fairly large, with only a few sentences or a paragraph per page. This is a great book for toddler or preschool aged kids who are interested in Firefighters but who don’t yet have the patients for a long non-fiction book about them.

Raccoon on the Moon and Other Tales combines several phonics stories into a single book. Each story features an animal and the illustrations are cute and colorful. Kids will be drawn to these stories because of the phonetic language being catchy, and the cute animals and stories.

Jonathan James and the Whatif Monster is a book about worrying or anxiety. It’s a cute story about how Whatif monsters put thoughts in your head that make you worry or doubt yourself. It explains how not trying new things is just as “risky” as sitting on the sidelines and missing out. It encourages kids to be themselves and not to worry about minor anxieties.

What Makes You Ill? Is a non-fiction book for kids that explains the basics of sickness and injury. One of my brother-in-laws is an EMT, so his son has been exposed to a bit more information about injury and illness than the average kid. As a result, he has all kinds of questions about being sick or getting hurt. This is a small book but it has a lot of information per page. It does a nice of explaining the basics to kids in a way they can understand.

My six year old nephew Drew loves race cars, and cars in general. I chose Build Your Own Cars and Build Your Own Cars and Trucks sticker books for him. These both have several pages of stickers that include car parts or stickers for race cars. Then there are regular book pages showing fairly plain or blank vehicles that you can add the stickers to. These books are really large and sturdy.

If you have a toddler or preschooler who likes to call the shots, pick up What Will Danny Do Today? Each page shows a little piece of Danny’s day and asks the reader whether Danny will chose option 1 or option 2. For example, will he have juice or jelly for breakfast? Each page gives your little one the chance to make a choice for Danny.

The last sticker book that I chose was Build A Picture Trains Sticker Book. Similar to the others, this one features several rail scenes on regular pages, and several train cars and other train-related stickers that you can combine to make your own scene.

Last, Look Inside Your Body. This is a really awesome and educational lift-the-flap book. It has over 100 flaps and provides visuals to children to help explain how our bodies work. My nephew with an EMT dad will love this book. I like how the book gives children visual explanations of their bodies, without seeming too graphic.

While these were my top picks, there are tons of other awesome, educational and fun books to see at Usborne. I definitely recommend shopping at Usborne to find a book to gift that will excite and entertain the kids in your life.

Win it: Usborne Books independent consultant Anna Pry is sponsoring a giveaway for Emily Reviews readers. Two people will each win a $25 gift card to Usborne books!

To enter: Fill out the Giveaway Tools entry form by 11:59pm EST on 12/2/2016. Giveaway is open to the US.

Entry Form

Emily

Hi there! I am Emily Evert, the owner of Emily Reviews. I am 28 and live in a small town in Michigan with my boyfriend Ryan and our two pugs. I have a large family and I adore my nieces and nephews. I love reading memoirs, and learning about child development and psychology. I love watching The Game of Thrones, Teen Mom, Sister Wives and Veep. I like listening to Jason Isbell, John Prine, and other alt-country or Americana music. I created Emily Reviews as a creative outlet to share my life and the products that I love with others.

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