Super Chunky Alphabet Puzzle

Comments about Melissa & Doug Super Chunky Alphabet Puzzle:

DO NOT BUY THIS PUZZLE! I initially purchased it because I loved the chunky letters and the beautiful animal illustrations. My 21-month-old reached for it among all of the others on the shelf. Then we got it home and the trouble began.

Let's start with the ones that we could at least figure out - The dog for the letter "B" was apparently a Bassett Hound. Chameleon for C was another tough one (what happened to Cat or Cow???) The lobster looking creature for S was I guess a scorpion. And it took us hours to realize the rodent for M was a Muskrat, and the Moose-looking creature for W was a Wildebeest. My daughter also had a hard time that the "monkey" for O was actually an orangutan.

And then the research began. The squid thingy coming out of a shell for N was a Nautilus. What? A Nautilus. Exactly. And then there was the X - looks like a squirrel with chipmunk striping. Took 3 teachers, 2 mothers and several of my older children's 6th-grade classmates to figure out X was for Xerus - a small ground squirrel found in Africa, and the X sounds like a Z for this animal.

So hooray for the letters - they are wonderful!!! But I can't help thinking I could be a millionaire, or at least have the gratitude of mothers and fathers everywhere, if I had an ounce of talent to produce a puzzle with bright chunky letters and beautiful illustrations that would include a cat, dog, monkey, snake, octopus, walrus and turtle (as opposed to toucan.) A puzzle with common sense associations.

My daughter is at the age where she is constantly asking what things are -- I'd like to be able to answer her, and not have her pre-school teacher wondering why she thinks squirrel begins with the letter Z and is spelled Xerus.....