Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is from all external appearances a great little puzzle. It's certainly a great concept for a 'first' puzzle, with it's bright fun aesthetically-appealing dinosaurs and easy-match puzzle board. It is certainly educational, and when I bought it I felt pretty good about my kids playing with it.
We own the older style - painted 'wooden' pieces. When I think wooden, I think solid wood, which is what these pieces appear to be. They have a nice heavy feel to them, and when thoroughly coated in paint, considering the false advertising, you'd really have no reason to expect otherwise.
Enter time and a little rough tossing around of the puzzle pieces, and as the paint begins to chip away - the dinosaur puzzle was the worst of the three chunky puzzles we own in terms of rapid paint loss. As the paint wears away, it becomes apparent that these puzzle pieces are nothing but pressed paper-like sawdust material. When revealed beneath the chipped-off paint, this dry, dusty substance easily flakes off where it can get into little mouths and become part of the general household dust.
Okay, so Melissa and Doug fudged a little on their description, which was prominently displayed on the packaging for our puzzle. What might have been wood once upon a time is now thinly pressed layers of sawdust and resin, but it was wood in a previous life, and that still counts, right? It's intentionally deceptive marketing, but does any of that really matter in the practical sense?
I think it does.
Medium density fiberboard (MDF) is nasty stuff. Containing a higher resin-to-wood ration than any other pressed wood product, MDF emits VOCs for at least a few months after manufacture and emits urea formaldehyde for the duration of its life. I doubt there have been any studies on using pressed wood for a child's toy that may be mouthed and is nonetheless handled frequently and in close proximity to their faces during day-to-day play. There have been studies suggesting urea formaldehyde is a suspected carcinogen; others show that incidences of leukemia and lymphoma increase through prolonged exposure of VOCs in the indoor environment.
Bottom line, most MDF is not something you want in your home in any form, and it's probably not the best thing to make a child's toy out of. There are ways to manufacture MDF which use resins that do not contain formaldehyde which are supposed to be environmentally friendly. I contacted Melissa and Doug to find out if they use these formaldehyde-free resins in their MDF. They've got really friendly customer service, but no one available could provide me with that information. I was told they'd get back to me. I'm still waiting.
In the meantime, I think I'll just stick with the old adage: You get what you pay for.
I think the important part is knowing what you're getting when you decide to purchase it and not being led falsely into believing you're paying for superior materials when you're really just buying a few adorable cubes or formaldehyde-imbued garbage coated thickly in conveniently concealing paint. Had this been disclosed in the description, I'd have no gripe with this puzzle. I also would not have purchased it to begin with.
There are solid wood (and somewhat safer plywood) puzzles out there - though not ones with dinosaurs that I've been able to find, which is a shame, because I no longer want my kids playing with this puzzle.
A higher quality puzzle costs anywhere from 2 to 3 times as much as a Melissa and Doug 'wooden' puzzle (sometimes more), but most have the added bonus of not being made in China; a small detail of Melissa and Doug's toys that has always sent a red flag of sorts up for me.
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Melissa & Doug Dinosaur Chunky PuzzleThis innovative puzzle features thick, chunky pieces that fit neatly into the puzzle board, and can also stand up to be used for pretend play. Remove each dinosaur piece to reveal a full-color picture underneath. Includes 7 dinosaur pieces. Measures 12" x 11" x 1".
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