Giraffe Hand-Puppet Cloth Book

Giraffe Hand-Puppet Cloth Book — your hand makes the giraffe move

This is a cloth book with a giraffe puppet built into the back of it. You put your hand inside, the head and neck come alive, and the story happens between the two of you rather than on the page. Eight soft fabric pages, rhymes to read aloud, and a giraffe that can lean over the side of the cot and have a look at your baby.

Which is rather the point. A newborn cannot read, cannot hold a book and will not sit still for one. What they will do is watch a face, follow a slow movement and listen to your voice. The puppet turns a book into something you perform, and in the first few months that is the only kind of reading that works.

🦒 The neck is the best bit

Of the four Zoo Crew puppet books this is the one with the most to work with. The neck gives you height and reach — it can appear over the cot side, peer round the pram hood, or bend down slowly until it is nose to nose. Babies track large, slow movement long before they can focus on detail, so a tall animal that moves is doing something a flat picture never can.

📖 A first book that cannot be destroyed

Cloth pages, so nothing tears, nothing has a sharp corner, and nothing is ruined when it goes in the mouth — which it will. Eight pages is about right for the attention span of someone under one: you reach the end before they lose interest, and then you start again, which is what they wanted anyway.

👼 It goes on the buggy

Roughly 18cm square and very light, with a loop that attaches to a pram, a buggy or a car seat. That makes it a going-out toy rather than a nursery-shelf one, and a puppet you can reach for at a bus stop earns its keep in a way one at home in a drawer does not.

🌍 And it funds conservation work

The Zoo Crew range is made by Make Believe Ideas with London Zoo, a ZSL conservation zoo, and ZSL state that every purchase supports their conservation work in the UK and around the world. Giraffes are on the at-risk list, which is why this one is in the range at all. As reasoning for a first gift goes, that is a good deal better than another plastic rattle.

What we like about it

• A soft toy and a first book in one, usable from the day you come home
• The grown-up works the puppet, which answers the "what do I actually do with a newborn" problem
• The long neck gives the most movement of the four puppets
• Cloth throughout — nothing to tear, nothing with a corner
• Eight pages, which is the right length at this age
• Attaches to a buggy, pram or car seat
• Made with London Zoo; every purchase supports ZSL conservation work

Specification

• Suitable from: birth
• Format: soft cloth book with an integrated hand puppet
• Pages: 8 cloth pages
• Size: approx. 18cm x 18cm
• Attachment: loop for a buggy, pram or car seat
• Care: surface clean only — no washing instruction is printed on it, so we would not risk a machine or a soak
• Range: Zoo Crew by Make Believe Ideas, made with London Zoo, a ZSL conservation zoo

❓ Frequently asked questions

It cannot be washed — is that a problem on a newborn toy?
It is the thing worth knowing, so here it is first. There is no care label on it, so our advice is surface clean only: a damp cloth on the spot, dealt with straight away, then left to dry flat. A puppet book stands up to that better than a comforter does, because it is a thing you hold and perform with rather than something that lives in the cot being dribbled on all night. Worth saying that none of the Zoo Crew range can go in a machine — the plush animals are surface wash only too. If you want something that will be properly chewed and properly cleaned, a silicone teether is the honest answer.

Can a newborn really use this?
They can be read to, which is the whole idea. For the first couple of months your baby is the audience: they watch the giraffe move and listen to your voice. Around three to four months they start grabbing at the pages, and by six months they are turning them and chewing the corners. It is one of very few things on this site that is genuinely useful on day one and still in use at a year.

Is it a book or a toy?
Both, and that is not a dodge. The pages have rhymes and illustrations and work as a book; the puppet works as a soft toy without opening it at all. Parents who want one object doing two jobs — and one fewer thing in the changing bag — tend to be the ones who like these most.

How much of a performance does it need from me?
Less than you fear. A slow lean in, a wobble of the neck, the rhyme read in whatever voice you have available on a Tuesday morning. Nobody is marking it, and if you feel daft the first time, your baby has no idea.

Does it make a good gift?
One of the better new-baby ones, because it is something parents use rather than store. Soft enough to post, no batteries, not the fourteenth muslin, and the conservation link gives the giver something to say. For a bigger present, pair it with the matching Giraffe Plush Toy — Giggles, same range, same animal.

🐾 The four puppet books

Same format, same size, four quite different performances:

• Giraffe — this one. The tallest, and the one with the most movement in it.
• Lion — the loud one. Roars, giggles, the biggest reaction of the four.
• Sloth — the slow one, and the one we would choose for bedtime.
• Pygmy Hippo — the one nobody else's baby has.

The rest of the range: eight Zoo Crew plush animals, four clip-on buggy toys with teething rings, and two board books — Never Touch the Zoo Crew and Don't Feed the Animals.

❤️ From our family to yours

Carefully chosen products for babies, toddlers and parents. Browse more baby books and the rest of the Make Believe Ideas range — free UK delivery on orders over £25.