We’ve been trying out Imagine That Publisher’s brand new Squishy Squashy Books this week

The Squishy Squashy Books with their fun short story, bright illustrations, cute characters and squishy ‘toy like’ animal are ideal for young children. In my opinion, they are also great for some older children with special educational needs who benefit from and enjoy sensory play.

We tried out both Squishy Squashy Panda and Squishy Squashy Lion.

What did we like about them?

• Young Children Love Them– Although we shouldn’t always ‘judge a book by its cover’, children often do and their first impression of a book really matters. If it looks exciting and enjoyable they are so much more likely to engage with it. It’s clear to see why kids love these books and are drawn to them. The pages and front cover are brightly coloured, the story simple yet fun and as I heard one of the children say when she saw the middle squishy part of the books “it looks like a toy”! How can they resist?

• Sensory Books– Young children and/ children with special educational needs often love sensory books. For some children with sensory needs these types of books can provide them with the sensory stimulation they need. In addition, for children who are visually impaired, having tactile elements to a book enables them to access and enjoy the books more. There’s a lot of tactile/ ‘touch and feel’ type books out there. But many have the same materials to feel. What I loved about these books is the tactile part is unusual, it’s lovely and smooth, soft and squishy for children to press and touch. There’s something quite therapeutic about the way the squishy animal bounces back after being squashed!

• Instructions to Engage- The Squishy Squashy Books are fantastic for engaging children through simple instructions. Children are guided throughout the story to press certain parts of the Squishy animal. Not only does this help reinforce children’s understanding of parts of the body but by including instructions children have to be actively listening and engaging.

• Great for Beginner Readers– The text is brilliant for beginner readers with its choice of simple nouns, verbs and fun use of rhyme. Great for children who are starting to learn to read CVC (consonant-vowel- consonant) words.

Please note our giveaway to win TWO of these wonderful books for your own children or children you teach has closed, tweet can be found here (Terms and conditions here)

Buy Squishy Squashy Lion and Squishy Squashy Panda on Hive here.

Why not follow Imagine That Publishers on Social Media? Here’s their Twitter, Instagram and Facebook pages.

*Please note this blog post was sponsored and we received copies of the books for review. All words and opinions are our own.