This is a Mini Book Review for Go Diego Go! Underwater Mystery, by Trish Holland, illustrated by Susan Hall, based on the original teleplay by Valerie Walsh for the LeapFrog Tag Reading System.

Take a look at our TiVo Season Pass and you’ll find a subscription to Go Diego Go!  That’s 4-year-old Caleb’s request.  So when presented with a chance to review a Tag version of a Go Diego Go! story, Caleb was very excited. In this 17 page story, the Tagger* gets to join Diego and his sister, Alicia, both of whom are animal scientists, in an underwater adventure trying to help Lucy, a big fish, find out what type of fish she is and where she belongs in the ocean.  Using deductive reasoning, Diego and Alicia attempt to solve the mystery of Lucy while introducing the Tagger to the exciting underwater world in which Lucy and her friends live.

Go Diego Go! Underwater Mystery features the voices from Go Diego Go! to help tell the story, which helped grab Caleb’s interest.  However, of all the Tag Books we’ve reviewed so far, this one was somewhat lacking in the number of reading-comprehension games in the story; only three games to be precise.  Mind you, there are colorful pictures with lots of places to point the Tag to hear interesting facts and unusual sounds, which will engage a child’s interest.  At the end of the book there are more games/lessons to help with ‘ip’ and ‘ap’ words, compound words, directions, and interesting fish facts.

Caleb liked this book; I think it may have been the “Diego” factor.  Anyway, he has decided to give it 10 Stars out of a possible 10.  As for me, one of the big things about Diego and Dora is their ability to interact with child, so I expected more of that with a Tag version of a Diego story and was a touch disappointed.  So I’m giving it 5 Dancing Elephants out of 8.

*We call one who writes a ‘Writer’ and one who reads a ‘Reader,’ so I’m going to call one who uses a LeapFrog Tag a ‘Tagger.’