I'll have to add my voice to the others in terms of the technical difficulties .. reader is brand new and sometimes the books don't "read" right away, we have to re-insert the cartridge a few times to make it work , which leaves me wondering if the reader will die entirely in three months as some reviewers on here experienced.. for the two days we've had it however the kids LOVE it ! I feel a bit guilty having a device read to the kids .. of course I spend time reading to them "live" and in person , together time with dad or mom is important ... but as any parent knows you're going to be busy with other things (dishes, washing clothes, preparing food , et cetera) - for times like that it's a great toy and I'm sure it helps them with their reading skills in a sneaky fashion disguised as entertainment ;) ...

The narrator for the stories seems lively enough to me but I was a bit surprised they didn't use actor's voices (or celebrity impersonators at the very least) for the voices of the various characters ... the sesame street 3 pack I purchased (elmo, grover, cookie monster) appears to be a happy exception to this rule, elmo sounds like elmo from the TV show, same for grover and cookie monster.

I've seen the reader selling for over a hundred dollars (!!) online.. please don't be fooled, look for it here or on ebay for a lesser price (I bought mine from walmart for twenty dollars and if need be it's possible to purchase it directly from the manufacturer... www.storyreader.com - for a little under seventeen dollars including shipping and handling albeit without any stories, you'd have to buy those seperately..

The story it came with was Nemo and read in a very wooden matter. The Sesame Street pack was nice.

Just as my son became very attached to the reader, it just stopped. It didn't get wet or get dropped...complete mystery.

When I contacted Publications International to troubleshoot, they said that since I've had the product for more than 3 months, there's nothing they can do. It's been in use for a little over 3 months.

Buyer beware.

The idea behind the product is interesting, and my child does seem to enjoy the toy.

I can't really believe that the toy has 'educational' value, like TV or videos it's mainly an entertainment product that does little, if anything, to help a child learn to read.

The product itself is kind of a mess. The books are pretty flimsy, the pages are easy to tear. The wire bindings on the books are easily bent which affects the the way the book fits into the reader.

The reader itself can be finicky, sometimes it'll read a book, sometimes it wont, with little apparent reason.

It would be nice if the reader had some sort of battery indicator, if the reader doesn't work it takes a bit of troubleshooting to tell if the batteries are dead, if the book is not seated properly or if the reader is just being finicky.

Aside from the mechanical issues, the actual stories are sometimes pretty awful. They tend to be over-simplified versions of some wonderful stories. Some of them are also read in a dreadful monotone voice. The result is that the stories can really have the life sucked out of them.

If I had to choose between reading to my child or sending her to her room with this, I'd choose reading to her every time.

I've same problem as the other user. The reader comes with two books, Sponge Bob and Dora. And it only works for these 2 books. I bought the little mermaid, Snow White, firetruck (3pk) and none of the 5 books work on the reader. Call their customer service and they said they have never heard of the problem and suggested us to buy a new reader. Unfortunately, the reader was a gift received almost a year ago and we just waited until now to buy more books. So now we're stuck with the bad reader and Sponge Bob and Dora are driving me crazy.

there are three toddlers in our house and they all find these books entertaining and enjoyable. a much better activity than watching tv. nedds some supervision at first but as they get older they like being able to sit with the books and read independently. they all love to sit and look at their books now and make up their own stories for the books that don't read themselves.