Average Customer Review:
 ( 10 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
52 of 53 found the following review helpful:
 Details are fudgedDec 28, 2007
By M
"Loops"
I have a curious child who enjoys looking at my osteology textbooks from college. I got this puzzle thinking, "Yay, it'll be fun for us to work on together, and I won't have to worry about her ruining my $100 book!" But now that I've seen this puzzle up close, I'd rather let her scrunch up the pages than waste time with this puzzle again.
As another reviewer mentioned, both sides of the puzzle have the same color background, and there is lots of negative space around the anatomical figure...this means that there are lots of blank pieces that are blue on both sides. (One side is slightly flatter than the other, but this is a very subtle difference--not enough for most people to go on.) It is frustrating enough for an adult to put together, let alone a child.
Furthermore, details are sketchy. On the organs side of the puzzle, not all the systems of the body are represented, and the ones that are depicted seem half-hearted. The esophagus appears to start somewhere in the thoracic cavity, then bypass the stomach and go straight to the intestines, for example.
As for the skeleton side, it looks to me as if the illustrator looked at a picture of a skeleton long enough to get the shapes of the bones mostly right, but couldn't figure out how the joints are put together, and so faked them by drawing lots of weird knobs of bone. The elbows are FUBAR. The foot on the right hand side has no heel bone, and the ankle on that side is fused--the tibia and talus look like one long, misshapen bone (yet on the other ankle they are shown as 2 separate bones...strange), and the right and left shoulder are constructed differently too (both wrong).
If a real person had a skeleton like this, he wouldn't be able to walk or bend his elbows, he'd always be dislocating his shoulders, he'd have trouble turning his head from side to side, and it would probably hurt to sit down.
People will think I'm being too nit-picky, but hey, I'm just laying it out for you. It really comes down to what you want your kid(s) to get out of a product like this. If all you want is vague, rote knowledge of where various body parts are, then go ahead and buy this. If you want your child to be able to understand how parts of the body fit together and see how they work, save your money for one of those neat models made by people who GET anatomy.
7 of 7 found the following review helpful:
 too simplifiedNov 25, 2009
By R. Rassi
My boys have had this puzzle for 3 years. It has held up great.
They love putting it together and don't get frustrated by the double sided pieces (you can tell by the way the edges were cut which side you are working on).
My only issues is the way they simplified labeling the parts of the body. Instead of patella, they wrote "knee bone". They did the same for ankle, foot...
I ended up taking a sharpee marker to ours and writing the proper names below what was listed.
With my additions, it is very educational.
Either way, worth the money.
8 of 10 found the following review helpful:
good puzzle, but the two sided-ness is confusingJul 04, 2007
By D. Komatsu
"children's lit lover"
I think the picture is terrific for kids, and the puzzle is very sturdy, but it wasn't clear to me when I ordered it that there were two sides. That discouraged my child from trying to assemble it. I wish it had been two different colors, at least.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Sturdy Puzzle, but dumbed downDec 10, 2010
By C. Johnson
"bricyn10"
The quality of this puzzle seems great, however I must agree with some of the complaints of other reviewers. They should have used the proper bone names for this puzzle. Any child who is old enough to put this puzzle together is old enough to learn tibia instead of shin or patella instead of knee. I also thought it was odd that the esophagus bypassed the stomach and went straight into the intestines.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Fun for all AgesSep 23, 2008
By Shalia L. Moore
"1CoolTchr"
I ordered this product for my special needs clasess and they enjoy it alot! I am able to get them to work together as well as having a lesson to go along with the puzzles. This is great for school and home use!
See all 10 customer reviews on Amazon.com
|
based on 10 reviews
