Leappads - are they any good?

[babydriver]

Thinking about getting DS1 one of these for his fourth birthday, but I have some questions:

• are all the books 'branded' (eg Disney, ScoobyDoo etc) or are there any which are just plain? (Personally I try to avoid the branded stuff as far as poss)

• is the speech clear, and with an English (as opposed to US) accent?

• with things like phonics, are they 'proper' phonics?

We'd like to get one that helps with learning to read and write. Would this be suitable, or are there other similar things that others would recommend?

Sorry for all the qus, but it would be quite a big purchase so I want to get it right!

you can dinosaur books and a frog book and others the leap pad itself is very good, there is a good range of books at the Early learning centre

thanks hotlove.

Thoughts from other MNers?

We got one for DSS for his 5th birthday. He was at the time not interested in reading at all although always liked being read to. We went for the spiderman one (I actually agree with you about avoiding branded stuff but he was really into spiderman at the time and we needed to get him interested in reading!) but you can get lots of plain books, think I saw some in Woolworths. He absolutly loved it and still looks at it from time to time. I really think it got him more enthusiastic about reading and past that first hurdle.
Lots of the spiderman one is an american accent I am ashamed to say but the others are english. Not sure what you mean by proper phonetics (maybe I need one myself!)it's all very clearly spoken.
BTW we got ours from ebay. Was second hand but DSS didn't know or care.

my ds1 has one and loves it - he is 4yrs

my lot love them. we have the my first leappad and 2 of the bigger ones and they are always using them (they are 8, 6 and 4)

thanks! sounds like that's us sorted for a gift then.