Tag Archives: counting

10 Spooky Pumpkins by Gris Grimly

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A little red haired girl steps out of her house on Halloween, dressed as a cute little clown and walks into a story that begins with “10 Spooky Pumpkins”. She saunters through the pages of the story as the countdown ensues through nine black cats, eight screeching bats and so on. The story ends when the moon scares them all off and the girl goes safely home to bed.

Reminiscent of “Five Little Pumpkins” and “Five Little Monkeys” in cadence and rhyme, the story is somewhat more eerie with its darkly humorous illustrations. Yet, the cute little clown breezes through each two page spread, adding a bit of lightness.

The author adds an artist’s note at the end of the book with information and background. Black and white drawings surround the note, giving readers another look at the spooky characters within the story. This is a nice addition to fall books. Recommended.

Ten Fat Sausages by Michelle Robinson

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“Ten fat sausages, sizzling in the pan…” begins a fresh take on a familiar nursery rhyme, with every other sausage refusing to go “bang” or “pop” and attempting escape instead. Most are not successful, due to a cat, fan, blender and so forth. But, at the end, two escape – not unscathed.

While the notion of a redo of a nursery rhyme is fun, this particular rendition is rather dark and somewhat unpalatable, so to speak. Illustrations of whirring blenders full of pulverized sausage and sliced or bitten sausages are just…yucky. The accompanying text explains each sausage’s end to the general rhyme of “Ten little monkeys”, but falls short on occasion in its faithfulness to the original rhyming sequence.

There are other “food” picture books out there that might be more fun. Or, buy this one and wait for the reactions when you read it aloud. That might be fun, too.

Night Light

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Night Light

 

 

 

Bold colors and crisp graphics make this book a stand out. It opens with the line, “one light shining bright?” written on the left page.  Over on the right page the reader sees what appears to be one ball of light.  As the reader turns the page, the one bright light reveals as a train headlight.

train

“7 lights flashing red and white?” reveals to be lights on a fire truck. fire truck

This interactive book is fun and visually appealing. Each page illustrates ascending numbers starting at one going through ten. At the end, where even the end pages are used for the story, the reader finds himself back at one.