Make and Play: Nativity
By: Author – Nosy Crow; Illustrator – Joey Chou
Rating: 4 of 5
This is a lovely book to have for the holidays. While it is intended for toddlers and young children (my grandkids are 2 and 4 years old respectively), it is also a fun way to display a cute Nativity no matter what your age is. Along with the nativity, there are several pages of activities and songs at the back of the book to help bring the Christmas story to life for kids.
The only problem I ran into was with the both the palm trees and the various people with feet. It took a little bit of effort to make the feet level one to the other for the people to stand straight and not topple over easily. The palm trees were a bit difficult to get to stand without falling over. In the end, I tilted them slightly backwards and that seemed to work. Both getting these to stand and pushing the pieces out are probably better left to an adult or older child as both take a delicate touch (even with a bit of care, I still managed to tear a slight bit of the design off of one of the bull’s legs.
The set makes a lovely little display on a credenza or a table in a foyer. The set includes: Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, a manger (in which put Baby Jesus inside), the Three Wise men, three shepherds – an adult male with his staff and a young boy (holding a lamb) and girl (holding a flower), an angel, two white sheep and one black sheep, a donkey, a camel, a bull and two palm trees
The artwork on this Nativity is by Joey Chou. I have loved his artwork for Disney but have recently discovered more and more of his other artwork for children and have been picking up those books for my grandkids.
For the most part, putting the pieces together is easy and intuitive (though as mentioned above, the people and palm trees take some effort). The manger is little more complicated and there are step-by-step how-to instructions on the actual press-out page. You remove them from the book and then remove the tiny press out areas from the slots. Other than the manager, there aren’t any instructions but you really don’t need them.
The book is published by Nosy Crow (I know them best from their Bizzy Bear series.) The cardboard press-out pages are a good thickness (not too thin, not too thick) and have a glossy finish. As I mentioned, some care is needed in removing them to avoid tearing.
The activity and song pages at the back are slightly thinner paper but certainly as thick as card stock and also has a nice glossy finish.
The book is in a hard cover and has a spiral binding. While it is possible to remove the board pages once the press-outs are removed, I don’t recommend it. Those pages help keep the integrity of the book together. I, personally, plan to store my set put together but I think if you choose to do so, you can take them apart (with care!) and put them back together again next year.
This is a lovely book to have for the holidays. While it is intended for toddlers and young children (my grandkids are 2 and 4 years old respectively), it is also a fun way to display a cute Nativity no matter what your age is. Along with the nativity, there are several pages of activities and songs at the back of the book to help bring the Christmas story to life for kids.