In this clever counting book, more than 2,500 items are imaginatively arranged in a dazzling display of detail, color and inventiveness. It was included on the Kansas State Reading Circle Recommended List and the Young Hoosier Picture Book Award Master List.
Ages 4-7. Each page in Sloat's counting book has a large, full-color illustration that gives children many opportunities to count to a given number. For instance, the page illustrating the number 3 shows an outdoor scene including 3 opossums reading 3 books, as 3 beavers chomp on trees and stumps. At the bottom of the page, an opossum, a book, a beaver, a leaf, a tree, and a stump appear in vignettes, indicating what to seek and count in the larger scene above. The numbers go from 1 to 10, then (on double-page spreads) by tens to 100. Younger devotees of the Waldo books may find the hunting as enjoyable as the counting, and the higher numbers challenge kids who've mastered more basic counting books. The illustrations are predictably crowded and sometimes chaotic in composition, but they're indisputably lively.
Almost everything about this counting book is confusing: it counts directly from one to ten, then switches to counting by tens to one hundred; the illustrations attempt to display wonders around the world but are disjointed and crowded.
An equally delightful companion to Sloat's first book, From Letter to Letter (1989), with a full page for each number up to ten and double spreads for 20, 30, etc. to 100. A picture key indicates what items can be found in the designated quantity: e.g., 30 dinosaur bones (arranged to form the numerals), dinosaurs, their eggs, paint pots used by an artist creating a dinosaur mural, and more. Time appealingly rendered scenes are nicely varied, and cleverly devised for subject interest as well as number inclusion. One of the best counting books to come along in a while.
In PW's words, ``This inventive counting book is jam-packed with information, as each page cleverly incorporates a numeral into a distinctive, energetic scene. All ages. (May)