Fancy Dress Christmas product reviews

We were very lucky to be selected for this delightful Nick Sharratt book called "Fancy Dress Christmas". This is another in a series of lift the flap fancy dress books by Sharratt. While we haven't seen the others, we have a few of Sharratt's books on our shelves, so we were very much looking forward to the read.

The first thing you notice about this book is the bold and bright colours and the beautiful full colour glossy cover and pages within the book. Each image is super engaging. The characters are drawn simply, yet are very recognisable. The first read through I did was with Miss 2.

In the first two pages, she allowed me to read the blurb before we turned the costume flap to see who was "inside" the costume. After that second page though, she got the trick and was in a huge hurry to see who was inside. She was very good at trying to guess, which she allowed herself a chance. I heard all sorts of noises out of her "woof woof, mow, epp epp". But the funniest one was the owl where she insistently cried Hoo Two!" Her favourite page was very clearly the presents, because she very carefully opened each flap and clapped at each thing. Then she wanted me to open them as well. It was a good thing the pages and flaps were pretty sturdy.

In the second read through, I just did this with Miss 7. While I thought she might be a little old for the book, I soon discovered that she was just as much in love with the flaps. She loved guessing who was in the costumes and even read some of the words, though wouldn't read the book to me. She spent a great deal of time looking at the gifts and talking to each animals about the gift they got. She said the gifts were absolutely the best part of the whole book. She did say that it would have been a cooler book if Sharratt had included a miniature of one of his other books in one of the gifts so we got a book in a book. She suggested that I write to Sharratt so it could be included next time.

I think it's safe to say this book was a huge hit. I would thoroughly recommend it as a gift for Christmas. It's just gorgeous, it's cheery and Christmasy. Plus the kids will enjoy playing with it.