Post by Daveym on May 31, 2009 22:22:48 GMT 1
One of the less sung of product from the Doctor Who range is the regular line of various Activity Books, usually there are about four per year being released with the newer addition of an 'Activity Annual' once per year.
So far I've managed to keep up to date with the releases, and to be fair with such a select few releases per year they make a nice target! So far this year we've had a new Activity Annual and (I'm assuming) the below other two releases. Here Goes:
The Activity Annual is an impressively packed compendium consisting of about 60 pages of puzzles, Mazes, Questionaires and a page of stickers. Much in line with a general puzzle book but probobly a bit expensive at £5.99 in comparison.
It's an ideal christmas stocking filler though and one that compared to the normal Doctor Who books offers the best value for money... more on this as i go along!
Alien Armies is 16 pages and boasts some very nice imagery, regrettably it's too heavy on this to pad those scant few pages out and the book feels empty because of it quite frankly.
The actual puzzles are incredibly simple, and maybe this is for the littlest of kids but that's NOT an excuse for such lazy unchallenging content. At £3.99 it's asking a bit much perhaps... still, there are some Transfers included and it does look nice! If nothing else.
Children of Time is billed a sticker book and Is based on the final episode of series 4. Running at aa mere 8 pages the 'meat' of it is a card centrefold that unfold into a long-shot of the Tardis interior and two sheets of large stickers of the key characters to apply to it.... the actual 8 pages lists the key points and characters in the story and it's kind of hard to say whether this is a value for money release at £3.99 again. Bear in mind the cheap discount shops have been seeing a wide distribution of very similar product from Alligator Press and others, all MUCH cheaper and arguably just as worthy as these more prestiguous releases.
Nontheless I like these various Activity books. They're simple fun and relativly low cost compared to other Doctor Who publications but I do see a serious problem with the value for money ratio here....
Interior centrefold of Children of Time
So far I've managed to keep up to date with the releases, and to be fair with such a select few releases per year they make a nice target! So far this year we've had a new Activity Annual and (I'm assuming) the below other two releases. Here Goes:
The Activity Annual is an impressively packed compendium consisting of about 60 pages of puzzles, Mazes, Questionaires and a page of stickers. Much in line with a general puzzle book but probobly a bit expensive at £5.99 in comparison.
It's an ideal christmas stocking filler though and one that compared to the normal Doctor Who books offers the best value for money... more on this as i go along!
Alien Armies is 16 pages and boasts some very nice imagery, regrettably it's too heavy on this to pad those scant few pages out and the book feels empty because of it quite frankly.
The actual puzzles are incredibly simple, and maybe this is for the littlest of kids but that's NOT an excuse for such lazy unchallenging content. At £3.99 it's asking a bit much perhaps... still, there are some Transfers included and it does look nice! If nothing else.
Children of Time is billed a sticker book and Is based on the final episode of series 4. Running at aa mere 8 pages the 'meat' of it is a card centrefold that unfold into a long-shot of the Tardis interior and two sheets of large stickers of the key characters to apply to it.... the actual 8 pages lists the key points and characters in the story and it's kind of hard to say whether this is a value for money release at £3.99 again. Bear in mind the cheap discount shops have been seeing a wide distribution of very similar product from Alligator Press and others, all MUCH cheaper and arguably just as worthy as these more prestiguous releases.
Nontheless I like these various Activity books. They're simple fun and relativly low cost compared to other Doctor Who publications but I do see a serious problem with the value for money ratio here....
Interior centrefold of Children of Time