The chances are, when you hear the name Haynes, you think of car maintenance manuals. Well, they certainly do have an enormous range of car manuals available to guide grown-ups who like to tinker under the car bonnet and get their hands covered in grease on a Sunday morning. But at Haynes, they've decided to attract new buyers early with their kids' versions of Owners' Workshop Manuals.
These brightly-coloured hardback books are aimed at 3-7 year olds and give you the low down on all your favourite motorised characters from popular kids' TV shows Bob The Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine and Roary The Racing Car. We received all three books and, as you can see from the photos, 2-year-old Pierre loved looking at the pictures.
The Roary The Racing Car book combines colourful pictures of characters and places from the TV programme that young readers will instantly recognise with a huge amount of quite complex information, dealt with in a simplified child-friendly way. You'll discover the rudimentary facts of aerodynamics, how car engines work and what all the different flags on a car racing track mean. The cut-away drawings of different cars are really detailed and informative. For now, Pierre is happy to look at the pictures and point at the cars but I know that when he gets a bit bigger, he'll love looking at this - probably with his dad - and learning all about cars on the inside and outside.
For an in-depth look at the book and a sneak peek of many of the pages, check out the Haynes website here. (Hardback, 270 x 210mm, 32 pages, 100 colour illustrations, RRP £9.99)
Next up was Bob The Builder. Now, I apologise in advance to all the feminists out there but I often find myself saying things like "that's a digger and that's ... erm ... another sort of digger" when asked to explain the differences between the different machines and vehicles on programmes like Bob The Builder and apps like the My 1st JCB app ! Well, even as a grown-up, I was drawn to this book, fascinatedly flipping through the pages and hoovering up snippets of information about each of the characters.
For now, Pierre is again happy to just look at the pictures and point out the characters he recognises, but this will be a very informative book when he's older. He loves the added game of trying to spot the bird on each page too.
For a closer look at this book, head to the Bob The Builder special page here. (Hardback, 270 x 210mm, 40 pages, 80 colour illustrations, RRP £7.99)
The final book on the testing hotseat was the Thomas & Friends one, which again got a good reception from Pierre. The paper seems glossier and shinier but probably less hard-wearing for this volume, compared to the Bob The Builder and Roary the Racing Car books. This is presumably explained by the suggested age range - Bob the Builder targets 2-6 year olds, Roary 3-6 and Thomas the slightly older 3-7 range.
The bright colours and kid-friendly pictures really appealed to Pierre and the explanatory texts led to some fun interaction, such as "pull the handle to make the whistle peep" and "imagine your Thomas' driver - how would you drive him ?". The cutaway diagrams again offer a fascinating peek into how the trains and other engines work, as well as explaining related machinery and railway tracks. Again, as a parent, I read it with interest, gleaning lots of fascinating facts that I didn't know.
To view sample pages, go to the Haynes Thomas & Friends feature here. (Hardback, 270 x 210mm, 40 pages, 100 colour illustrations, RRP £9.99)
We often hear about boys being reluctant readers and not being attracted to books. These books, while also being suited to girls, would definitely be ideal for a bit of father-and-son bonding at bedtime !
star rating : 4.5/5
RRP : £7.99 - £9.99 (see above)
for more information : http://www.haynes.co.uk/
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my son would love all of these!
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