I meet a couple of friends once a week for coffee/chai/chocolate and today one of them said "want to go to the bookstore afterwards?"

...

I assumed it was a rhetorical question. Anyway, this friend has 2 small kids so we of course gravitated to the kids section, where she bought nothing, and I bought this book.

For myself.

It has flaps.

It has clues.

It has riddles.

Did I mention it had flaps? Flaps are almost as good as pop-ups!

The book is beautiful, with a gorgeous spread and multiple flaps for each room of a house owned by an obviously very wealthy Great Aunt Martha. Behind each flap is a little fact about the object on the flap and they cover a multitude of subjects: art, music, inventions, history, and fashion.

Each spread also contains a clue to one of the flaps - this was, unfortunately, the most disappointing aspect of the book as the clues seemed easy to the point of insulting. Yes, yes, this is supposed to be a kids book, so the clues reflect that, I know. But the clues' simplicity seem disproportionate to the relative maturity of the facts the other flaps contain. There are a few concepts (like BC and AD, or royal executions as examples) that imply a higher level of education than clues that consist of "Stop Press! Read all about it! The answer is here in black and white!", which is easy enough that I don't even have to tell you the answer. Although perhaps in this digital age I'm giving kids too much credit.

Regardless, the facts were great but the clues too easy. But the book is lovely and I can't wait to show it to my nieces. ( )