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A few weeks ago Gavin and I took a trip to the local library. However, taking a toddler there can be kind of a nightmare while he tries to escape out the front door and down the stairs, so I’m learning to make friends with the librarians real quickly. It just so happened that the week before we received the Busytown Playsets to review, the librarian dropped the Richard’s Scarry’s book Cars and Trucks and Things that Go into my bag when I asked for some recommendations for truck lovers. I was completely floored when at just 2, Gavin understood the silliness and humor of the illustrations, while he pointed to the Bananamobile, Broom-o-cycle, pumpkin car and apple van and giggled hysterically.

We received two playsets to review, the Roadway Starter Set and the Town Fire Station. These sets are suggested for kids ages 3 and up. We opened the Roadway Starter Set first. This set includes Lowly driving his apple car, 8 plastic roadway tracks arranged in an oval, a small bookstore, as well as a traffic sign and signal.  These tracks are compatible with some wooden rail tracks, and it didn’t take me long to have all sorts of trains, cars and Little People animals surrounding the tracks building our own diverse neighborhood.

However, once we opened the Town Fire Station he was absolutely in love. He’s a truck and car guy, so he was mesmerized by the fire station. This set comes with 8 plastic roadway pieces, a fire truck, fire station, and a Fireman pig. It only took me a minute or two to get the pieces of the fire station together. However, the two front doors kept falling off when he tried to open and close them on his own with his fingers, so I permanently removed them for now so he wouldn’t get frustrated. He loves pushing the button that launches the fire truck out of the fire station onto the tracks, over and over. The station and the accessories are durable plastic and well made. I’m not a huge fan of the plastic tracks, but the fact that they are compatible with the wooden ones is a big plus for me for interactivity and imaginative play.

Right now Gavin’s still a little young for pretend playsets like this. He loves the pieces of them and the mechanics of how they operate right now, but as is appropriate for his age, he is just beginning to understand how to pretend to be asleep and translate these actions when playing to characters. However, in just a few short months, I won’t doubt that given his love for the Richard Scarry characters on the page of his favorite book, he’ll soon be finding ways to bridge the gap from the book to the living room floor.

We are giving away the Busytown Starter Set and Busytown Fire Engine Set! Please see below for details!

I received these two playsets free to facilitate this review. The opinions expressed in this post are my own.