Counting potatoes

ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO by Todd H. Doodler. Little Simon, 2013.

The birthday party is fun at first as 1 then 2 then 3 potatoes join in the celebration. But when there are 20 potatoes in one room, things get a bit crowded. How can this problem ever be resolved? Can you say "mashed"?

Facts and Figures

LIFETIME: THE AMAZING NUMBERS IN ANIMAL LIVES by Lola M. Schaefer with illustrations by Christopher Silas Neal. Chronicle Books, 2013.

How many holes can a woodpecker drill in a lifetime? How many fleeces can a sheep produce? How about the number of eggs that can be laid by an alligator in her lifetime? These are among the answers in this book that combines animal facts with counting.

pictures worth thousands of words

HOW MANY JELLY BEANS? by Andrea Menotti with illustrations by Yancey Labat (Chronicle 2012) is subtitled: A GIANT BOOK OF GIANT NUMBERS. That is the truth as our characters find out when offered some jelly beans. How many do they want? 10, 20, 100, 1000: the numbers grow larger and larger. Each number is accompanied by that same number of jelly beans. As the numbers swell, the jelly beans each become smaller and smaller. Final pages fold out into a huge illustration of 1 million jelly beans. <176>




DOG LOVES DRAWING by Louise Yates (Jonathan Cape/Random House 2012) gives readers Dog, a reader who owns a bookstore. One day, Dog receives a drawing pad. The first thing he draws is a door, and from there the story takes off limited only to the imagination of Dog and his new traveling companions (crab, owl, duck, and a stick man. Adventures await as quickly as they can be sketched. <177>

concept books

Ken Geist and Henry Cole team up in WHO'S WHO (Feiwel and Friends, August 2012) which is one of the forthcoming books that uses the pattern from "Over in the Meadow." Here, readers will count monkeys, bats, and hares among other creatures in the bouncy rhythm of the poem. <87>




LITTLE GOBLINS TEN by Pamela Jane with illustrations by Jane Manning (Harper 2012) also utilizes the rhythms and patterns of "Over in the Meadow." This time, though, readers will be counting goblins and mummies and other "monsters." <88>




CREATURE COUNTS by Brenda Haunte with illustrations by Vincent Nguyen (FSG, July 2012) is the third book coming this year to use the patterns of "Over in the Meadow." In this book, the pattern begins with "In a prehistoric meadow..." and introduces readers to all sorts of dinosaurs and their quiet lives in prehistoric times. <89>




B IS FOR BROOKLYN by Selina Alko (Holt/Ottaviano, August 2012) is an alphabet book about bagels and Coney Island and Gowanus Canal, Prospect Park, and more. Some of the history and culture of Brooklyn, NY, is conveyed in the illustrations and the text. <90>




National Geographic Kids (2012) gives readers an interesting alphabet book with AFRICAN ANIMAL ALPHABET by Beverly and Dereck Joubert. Plenty of "Did You Know?" fun facts are scattered throughout the book as well. <91>

Counting Book

The Associate Dean of our College of Education has produced, aling with some colleagues, a counting book entitled THE CIRCUS (Xlibris 2011). The book moves from 1 to 10, each page noting that the items themselves do not make a circus. For example, "One tent does not make a circus." However, all the acts and the audience combined do make for a fun day at the circus. The book is also available in a Spanish language edition. Some discussion questions follow the text of the book.