Busytown Mysteries Review

Children everywhere have been enjoying the lovable animal based characters that Richard Scarry has written about in his children's books for the last forty years, myself included. The Scarry books have sold over 150 million copies! I so remember reading these books in grade school, and it is a great pleasure to be able to share them with my own children. Scarry's most popular series of books was about Busytown. Just this last weekend Cookie Jar Entertainment launched Busytown Mysteries on CBS. I was able to get my hands on a copy of the show that aired last Saturday morning and share it with my boys.

The Busytown Mystery series stars some of Scarry's most beloved characters such as, Huckle Cat and Lowly Worm. Children get to follow these familiar characters around while they are solving some of the everyday mysteries that need solving in Busytown. The lovable characters of Busytown Mysteries engage children to use deductive reasoning skills such as Who? What? When? Where? and Why? Children will love the fun storylines like "Where is Mr. Frumble's pickle car?" and "How can they find a lost parrot find its owner?". You can be sure that the Busytown characters will find out and in the process your children will help solve the mysteries too.

The fun and learning does not stop there! BusytownMysteries.com is a fun and interactive website that allows kids to explore the different neighborhoods in Busytown and interact with the Busytown characters. There are 14 different games and activities that are designed for preschoolers. Benji, who is 4.5, was super excited to get on the site and check it out. He did find the navigation a bit difficult at first but once I showed him what to do and how to do it, he moved right along, checking out all the Busytown neighborhoods. One of the interactive parts of the site is a feature called "My First Email" that allows your preschooler to email their progress to pre-approved friends and family addresses. This would be a great way to show off the skills to grandma and grandpa, or any other interested family member.

Below is a video clip with my sons' giving me their opinion on Busytown Mysteries right after they watched the show. Oscar, my 6 year old, absolutely loved it! Benji did as well he just didn't express it to me as much as Oscar did. It was obvious to me while they were watching the show that they were truly engaged and definitely trying to help the Busytown characters solve the mysteries. They were shouting out their suggestions to the characters - too cute! The remainder of the clip entails Benji trying out the interactive games on BusytownMysteries.com. This was our first look ever at the site so this was the part where we were still exploring the layout and how the games worked.




To get your kids Saturday mornings started off in the right direction you should definitely go check out the Busytown Mysteries series and see what its all about. A good time will be had by all as you flashback and remember these lovable characters from your own childhood when you see them brought to life. You can watch Busytown Mysteries on CBS weekend mornings in the Cookie Jar TV Block of children's programming. Go to http://www.cookiejartv.com/schedule.html to check when the series is airing in your area.

*One2One Network has provided me with a copy of the Busytown Mysteries series, featuring one episode. I was provided this copy for the sole purpose of giving my honest opinion and experience from viewing the series. I was not compensated in any other way for this review.*