Tinky Winky's Magic Guillotine
Customer Rating: 
I bought this book for my oldest daughter when she was one, a die-hard teletubby-head at the time, and about to leave on a international trip without me. Even though it is a big unwieldy book, my daughter loved and convinced her grandmother to carry it around in her purse.
You punch out the cardboard figures of Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa, and Poe. Then, each page has little slots to stick the figures in. One page has La La going for a walk. One page has them eating dinner, and has a slot for you to slip the figures down a slide. On the last page you tuck each one into bed for night-night. Really simple, really sweet, and held my daughter's attention a long time.
My oldest daughter outgrew this book years ago but now my youngest daughter has discovered it. I feel a little bad for her though, getting it second hand. Yet, not bad enough to buy a new one. But each of the cutout figures is now frayed around the edges, the cardboard intermittently splitting into layers, continually exposing undisturbed cardboard strata. And, saddest of all, Tinky-Winky has long been decapitated. Once in a while the head reappears and gets taped back on the body, but then it falls off soon thereafter. This doesn't seem to traumatize the girls, I'm not sure why, I find it disturbing. But the girls can not be dissuaded. I'm recommending this book because, regardless of whether or not I understand why, it seems to be very absorbing for kids. Once they get into it they play with it relentlessly.
Some reviewers have suggested having the cutouts laminated. That's a good idea. I didn't think of that. And likely wouldn't have motivated to do it even if I had. Is it a simple thing to get things laminated? Sounds to me like something involving multiple steps.
cut outs are a pain
Customer Rating: When I ordered this book, I just wanted a simple storybook to read to my Teletubbie-obsessed 17 month old. I didn't realize there would be cut outs of the Teletubbies which one must insert into slots in each page in order to properly read the story. The worst part about this is that on most of the pages the slots are poorly designed- they are too small to fit the cut outs and one must struggle and force them in (tearing them in the process). Of course, my son is too young to play with the cut outs himself, but I can't imagine even an older child doing it. That said, my son absolutely loves this book- as it is big and bright and colorful and he loves when the Teletubbies go down the slide and get into their beds. I just wish it were better designed and that the cutouts were an added option, because except on one page where there is a picture of Tinky Winky, it is Teletubbieless unless you use the cut outs. **UPDATE**: Well, after only a couple of weeks, the cut outs were completely ruined: dogeared, torn and taped back together. I considered buying another book even though I hate it so much. My husband said we should get the cut outs laminated this time, which was another readers suggestion (the publishers really should do this, not the consumer, but I guess they sell more books this way if you have to buy a new one every two weeks)...
