New See n' Say Sucks

When I was a very tiny girl, I remember having a See n' Say.  I know that the girl across the street from me that I used to play with (though it would be a stretch to ever have called her my friend), had the other one, but for the life of me, I can't remember which I had and which she had.  I know that one had the alphabet and one had animals.

And I know predictably I wanted hers and not mine.



After finding the picture, I want to say I had the spelling one.  It was difficult to use because the letters were so close together...Regardless, I remember hours of fun pulling the string...on my sister's.

So, when I saw a used one in good condition, I snapped it up.

But it's not the same thing.

For one thing, the new ones use a lever instead of a pull string.  Yes, it is more durable, but it's a lot more difficult to pull than a pull string.  So, my daughter needs my help to pull the lever and make it go.

But the biggest problem is that they've replaced all the said onomatopoeic animal sounds with recordings of real animal sounds.

How is that a See n' SAY?

It's not.  It's a See n' Sound.

To make matters worse, the recordings that they've picked are barely recognizable to me, a biologist.  They have the specific cry of a specific owl- not the "hooooo-hooo-hooooooo" that we're all used to hearing mean "owl".

So, in other words, they've taken a great, educational toy and turned it into an appeasement toy.  There's no way for a child to make the sounds that are on the recording- how are they supposed to learn how to read the animal sounds?  Or in Old MacDonald, they can't say the sounds because you CAN'T say the animal sounds on the recording.

The most irritating sound, though, is the bunny.  Evidently bunnies go "Boing, Boing".

Funny, I never learned that one in Animal Behavior class.

What a waste of my money.