Superhero car seat doesn't leap to the top of our ratings

Even kids who usually squirm in their car seats might jump at the chance to sit in the lap of a superhero such as Batman or Dora the Explorer. And thanks to a company called KidsEmbrace they now can. For $160 you can buy toddler booster seats imprinted with those characters as well as race car driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and SpongeBob SquarePants. But when the testers at Consumer Reports tried to install the fanciful KidsEmbrace seats, they were not amused.

In our tests, the KidsEmbrace toddler booster seats were among the more challenging toddler boosters to install. Our child seat testers, all of whom are nationally certified child passenger safety technicians, found that in some cases they had difficulty tightening the necessary straps because of the limited access behind the padded seat cover and car's headrest. With effort, you could eventually get a secure fit.

Once it was installed correctly, however, the KidsEmbrace did very well in our crash tests, which simulate a 30-mile-per-hour frontal crash into a wall or other fixed object.

At $160, the KidsEmbrace cost as much as our top pick toddler booster, the Graco Nautilus 3-in-1, which we named a CR Best Buy. The Graco Nautilus has excellent crash protection and scored well on ease of use and fit to vehicle. Still, if a cartoon character is what it takes for your child to be happily strapped in, and you have a lot of patience, the KidsEmbrace is a good choice.

The KidsEmbrace toddler seat, like many harnessed boosters, can convert from a harnessed to a belt-positioning booster seat where the child is strapped in using the car's lap and shoulder belt. When used as a booster, the KidsEmbrace provided good belt fit in all five major vehicle types in which it was installed, including compact cars, midsized sedans, small SUVs, large SUVs, and minivans but took some care to guide the belt correctly into the shoulder belt guide.

—Artemis DiBenedetto