Max the Rabbit Puzzle Books Review

For some reason, when I originally pulled these books out of my book mail, I thought that they were your standard lift the flap books that just happened to be in the shape of puzzle pieces. I thought that was decently fun and might be easier for Maren’s little fingers to get the flaps flipped in the first place. But then I opened the books themselves and realized, with more excitement than is probably reasonable for a grown adult to have over a board book, how much cooler these are than lift the flaps! Each spread of the book has a puzzle piece cut into the artwork, which gets removed as you read. On the back of each piece is another bit of artwork. When you reach the final spread, instead of a puzzle piece there is a square cutout with a background, but no character. You then take the backsides of the four puzzle pieces and arrange them into the square to fill in the artwork for the final page.

It’s a really fun and rewarding reading experience, especially because the final line of the book is revealed in the pieces as well. Fitting the puzzle together is aided by having the background to match the pieces up, rather than only being able to rely on the pieces themselves to figure out how they fit together. It’s a good bridge from baby to little kid puzzles, I think. Which makes it perfect for Maren’s age and stage of learning right now. But it also happens to be fun to do for adults and older sisters, too!