Second Concept Book Soft Shapes: Shapes by Innovative Kids and illustrated by Jenn Ski is a nontoxic latex-free pressed foam book 6.5”x6.5” and 1.5” thick. There are 5 pages with 2 circle shapes, one star, one oval, and one triangle. Each of the shapes: a beach ball, a sea star, a crab, and a sail on a boat are puzzle pieces that fit into their setting and once removed, the shape’s name is printed on the indented space. The pieces are not meant to teeth on but to enjoy only as tactile learning. Each piece has a textured imprint with a smooth backside. You can’t help rubbing the pieces between your fingers and putting them back in their respective place. Soft Shapes: Shapes could be dropped into the beach bag along with other beach toys and it’s repetitive question, “What shape is the…” adds to verbal play, prediction, shape awareness and identification or categorizing objects within a beach setting. The colors are pastel blue, yellow, orange, and the last page has navy blue for the ocean water in contrast to a deep red for the sail boat. I am not sure if the sudden dark color is a subconscious warning of the deep ocean or if that color was chosen merely to contrast the primary red color boat and white sail. But that page does stand out from the other pages. The spine of the book does not look very strong and might need to have extra care when turning pages and putting the shapes in or taking the shapes out of each page. I would like to have seen solid colors for each puzzle shape and maybe different texture on each piece. Even though there are several concepts mixed in this book that would be appropriate for a child of 8 months to 1 or 2 years, this book would be best used with a child of 3+ who would not put pieces in the mouth as readily as a younger child would. This book would not be as lyrical in verse as Brown Bear, Brown Bear, nor would it offer as many interesting animals and colors for the emergent reader to be challenged and to talk about or to predict; I would probably use Soft Shapes: Shapes sparingly and find other concept books on shape and tactile awareness to use with very young toddlers. ( )