If you have little ones in the house, I'm sure you must have heard of Tinga Tinga Tales. It's on CBeebies every day at 12.20 and is on BBC2 at 9.10. It's inspired by traditional animal tales from Africa and the tingatinga artwork of Tanzania. It tells stories of how your favourite animals came to be, such as why the Elephant has a long trunk, why Tortoise has a broken shell or why Giraffe has a long neck. Or why Hippo has no hair (a story you can read here).
Juliette doesn't get to watch Tinga Tinga Tales very often but the few times she has seen it, she was transfixed. She therefore recognised the hippo character and the Tinga Tinga logo straight away and asked if she could have it. The only trouble is, kids these days are so used to all singing-all dancing toys with electronic noises, flashing lights, talking tummies and goodness knows what else that her first reaction was to squeeze its tummy, feet and ears to see what it would do. When the answer was "nothing", she was a bit disappointed !
Pierre, on the other hand, instantly grabbed it and gave it a kiss saying "aaaah" so he obviously thinks it's cute, despite never having watched Tinga Tinga Tales !
As a parent, there is another aspect that I like. A percentage of proceeds from the toys go to a foundation set up to offer education for children in Africa. The Tinga Tinga website lists other ways in which the programme is trying to help improve education in Africa
The toys are really high quality with great detail and lovely expressions (I love the eyes) and they're suitable for children aged 0+ which makes a nice change. If your kids are like Juliette and always expect soft toys to make noises, there are also bigger 25cm toys available which play the Tinga Tinga theme tune when you squeeze their tummies !
star rating : 4/5
RRP : £5.99
for more information : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bandai-Tinga-Tales-animals-colours/dp/B00452U0D6
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I love that hippo - it is so cute!
ReplyDeletei love tinga tinga tales and im 35 !!!
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard of the toy before but with the new baby I am sure I will.
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