Disney/Pixar Monsters Inc. Monsters are lurking after dark, waiting to scare sleeping children everywhere. The job of monsters Sulley and Mike, the top "scare team" from Monsters, Inc., is to collect the screams of children to power their monster world. Your child follows their fur-raising escapades as they discover that a child's laughter is far more powerful than a scream.Kids just place the book on the LeapPad player, pop in the cartridge, and touch any page with the Magic Pen to bring learning to life. This book also works with the LeapPad Plus Writing learning system and the Quantum Pad learning system.

LeapPad system's unique, multisensory interface already allows kids to enhance reading skills without making it seem like work. But this book has the added attraction of featuring those creepy (but, oddly, cuddly) creatures from the blockbuster movie Monsters, Inc. While top scarers Sulley and Mike figure out that kids are fun, not fearsome, children will exercise reading comprehension, retention, and concrete/deductive thinking. They'll also enhance their vocabularies and grammar skills along the way.

It's simple to use (kids insert the cartridge and book into their LeapPads, and use the attached stylus to hear information), but this system is an innovative technology that provides entertaining, effective learning, designed by a Stanford-trained reading expert. As well, the system has been credited with the TMA's Educational Toy of the Year and People's Choice awards. The books are designed to correlate with national academic standards for the grade levels they target.

Two notes: Make sure the LeapPad book you get is appropriate for the child's educational level; this one should be a challenge for kids up to age 8. As well, know that some LeapBooks work on both LeapPad and LeapPad Pro, like this one, but some books only work with one system. --Diane Beall