Overall:
I bought this for my 1-year old kid, who was already having a lot of fun banging on various tins and boxes around the house. We figured we'd give him a set of drums to play on. Our options were either a set of miniature bongos or these Remo kids' bongos. Both were in the same price range. These bongos won out because they are rounded off and have no sharp edges. The miniature bongos were tunable and consequently had protruding metal hardware that could have caused cuts or could be unscrewed and swallowed. But while these Remo bongos are much safer, they don't sound all that great. They sound alright when played on your lap or held with your knees, like you're supposed to, but a very young child isn't quite big enough to play like that. My son plays them on the floor, which is unfortunate because the bongos have no feet to raise them off the floor. The result is that you get a muffled, dead sound because the air below is not free to resonate, and playing them isn't nearly as much fun, and it take much more effort to get reasonable volume out of them. It would take an older child to be able to play the instrument on the lap or between the knees, but then a child that age would probably be able to play safely with the miniature bongos, which sound more like the real thing. They're okay for what they are, but with the dull, uniform sound, it doesn't hold my son's interest for very long.

• Submitted: 4/9/2005