AmySea

2.5 to 3 stars. If at First You Do Not See is a book with a gimmick. See the colorful cat face on the cover? Flip it 180 degrees, and you've got a butterfly. Inside the book baskets of vegetables, hillsides, mushrooms, hamburgers, and bouquets of flowers all turn into other things with a 180 flip of the book. The text of the story runs around the border of the pictures, which encourages the slow shift in perspective. The illustrations are well done and clever, so why the 2.5/3 star rating?

Well, the gimmick loses its zing after the first few pictures, and there really isn't a lot of variety in what is displayed upon the flip of the book. While the kids, my nephew in particular, were tickled with the trick on the first few pages, by the fifth flip or so the appeal was pretty much gone.