This is one of my son's favorite Leapster cartridges. One "trick" that he discovered is that one can play the games for different letters without having to trace/write any of them. As other reviewers have correctly pointed out the tracing can be too demanding and frustrating, especially for the younger children. This is my son's work-around: After playing the "A" game, press the "Home" button on the Leapster, and then return to the games and one then gets the game for letter "B" just as if one had completed tracing the previous letter. This allows even the younger kids, like my son, who cannot trace well yet to still enjoy this cartridge immensely. There are different games for different letters. The "A" game which unfortunately comes first, is one of the most boring. But later on come some of the really fun ones including: shovelling out the "cold" C's that are stuck under a pile of snow, flying with the F's, vacuuming up the V's, etc. My son sometimes does attempt to trace the letters as well already, but mostly he is not ready for that part of the cartridge yet, and that's ok.

We got this game for my 4 yr old along with the Disney Princess one and at first she played all princesses, but after a little while, she spends more time with this one. The games are more timeless and she loves building her book. Great for letter learning and writing!

My son really likes this game, and I love that he is learning to write his letters.. He does have a hard time writting them tho, you need to be quite exact.. They should give a little more room for error..

This game's strong point is that it helps children learn to write the letters, both upper and lower case. Of course for the younger kids, it would help with letter recognition, and what sound the letters make... so there is something for everyone with this game, no matter what skill level they would be starting with.

I like the fact that this game was designed to be played on the TV, but quite honestly, I have discovered that the older Leapster cartridges can be used with the TV too. The features aren't quite as "spiffy" but you can still plug it in and see the game play out on the TV just like you would the newer upgraded L-Max games.

Santa brought us Letters on the Loose, and after playing with it I had to tell my little one that Santa made a huge mistake with this game. It is NOOOOOO fun. Santa thought you could chase letters and pick them out of groups etc. but it's not like that at all. There's a few times of picking out the letter of interest from three letters, after you do this 3 - 4 times the game forces you to copy the letter you're working on by presenting dashed lines. It is at this point that the game sucks big time. It wants you to trace the lines exactly - there's no smart fit software in there to give a little kid credit for the right kind of shape - if she's not perfectly dead on with her tracing it keeps telling you to do it again, and not in a kind sounding encouraging way. It sounds pretty darned critical. My daughter is not easily frustrated, and this got her down. I tried the tracing part, and it gave ME an attitude! Otherwise I don't find the alphabet creatively or compellingly presented. I have not bothered to write many reviews in my life, but this game drove me to it. Don't buy it unless your child is already in like second grade and has really high self esteem. It's like Leap Frog had the World's most boring unfun sadistic teachers design this one.