Jenny Tyler

Usborne First Learning - Time is an activity book for young children to introduce them to the concept of time and learning to read clocks. It features Cat and Mouse who I believe turned up in various Usborne books. I liked it as a kid because I enjoyed comparison pictures, where you can either see the same scene at different times of day or the same characters doing different activities, however the latter pages of the book were kind of boring to me as they focused more on numbers and less show more on any narrative. I never did learn to tell the time very well either, so I don't know how useful the book actually is! show less

One of the few books I read in my early teens, this book still exists in our shelf after nearly two decades.
The illustrations are very colorful and realistic, with concise and direct-to-the-point descriptions of maps and history of the earth itself. I remember rereading it almost every year; the information are very useful now that I meet lots of people from countries other than my own.

Usborne Maze Puzzles - Treasure Trails follows Cat and Mouse on a treasure-seeking adventure. Each page is a new maze you have to navigate, with detailed illustrations in which you have to find a few things. It's a lot of fun for children, not too hard but not too easy either.

Readers are asked to find hidden animals throughout the farmyard. The pictures are very detailed, and the flaps are easy to lift. There isn't much of a story, and the words are simple; providing a basic description of the scene and asking you to find who is missing. The textures are good for young curious minds and there is a wide variety available. The drawings and textures are the only things that would make me want to include this in my collection, otherwise, it's not worth it.