Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I have a curious child who enjoys looking at my osteology textbooks from college. I got this puzzle thinking, "Yay, it'll be fun for us to work on together, and I won't have to worry about her ruining my $100 book!" But now that I've seen this puzzle up close, I'd rather let her scrunch up the pages than waste time with this puzzle again.
As another reviewer mentioned, both sides of the puzzle have the same color background, and there is lots of negative space around the anatomical figure...this means that there are lots of blank pieces that are blue on both sides. (One side is slightly flatter than the other, but this is a very subtle difference--not enough for most people to go on.) It is frustrating enough for an adult to put together, let alone a child.
Furthermore, details are sketchy. On the organs side of the puzzle, not all the systems of the body are represented, and the ones that are depicted seem half-hearted. The esophagus appears to start somewhere in the thoracic cavity, then bypass the stomach and go straight to the intestines, for example.
As for the skeleton side, it looks to me as if the illustrator looked at a picture of a skeleton long enough to get the shapes of the bones mostly right, but couldn't figure out how the joints are put together, and so faked them by drawing lots of weird knobs of bone. The elbows are FUBAR. The foot on the right hand side has no heel bone, and the ankle on that side is fused--the tibia and talus look like one long, misshapen bone (yet on the other ankle they are shown as 2 separate bones...strange), and the right and left shoulder are constructed differently too (both wrong).
If a real person had a skeleton like this, he wouldn't be able to walk or bend his elbows, he'd always be dislocating his shoulders, he'd have trouble turning his head from side to side, and it would probably hurt to sit down.
People will think I'm being too nit-picky, but hey, I'm just laying it out for you. It really comes down to what you want your kid(s) to get out of a product like this. If all you want is vague, rote knowledge of where various body parts are, then go ahead and buy this. If you want your child to be able to understand how parts of the body fit together and see how they work, save your money for one of those neat models made by people who GET anatomy.
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The puzzle features the best graphics, highest quality, largest size and lowest price compared to competitors. Colorful and highly detailed, the Human Body Floor Puzzle is made of heavy-duty cardboard with an easy-clean surface that helps keep it looking new for years to come. Measures 12" x 9.5" x 3". 100 pieces.
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