TanTan Math Story publishes story books detailing math concepts. This particular book is the best in their series I have read to date. Who Eats First deals with comparing, sorting, and measuring.  The illustrations have soft backgrounds, while the characters are colorfully vibrant and full of action.

The story begins, ” The rain forest animals were hungry. They followed a sweet scent… And there was a BIG round peach! Surely, it was a delicious peach. But who would eat the first bite?”  Giraffe convinces the other animals the first bite should go to ‘the tallest animal’. The animals measure their heights using the lines ( like a ruler) etched into the tree trunks. Just when giraffe is about to take the first bite, rhino wants to sort the animals by weight. They use a seesaw as a weighing balance. “The animal balanced by the most rocks is the heaviest!” When rhino is about to eat the peach, gator wants to sort by ” the animal with the biggest mouth to eat first.” Soon the rabbit wants the sorting to go by who has the longest ears, followed by monkey wanting to sort by who has the longest tail.  Each time the illustrations cutely show the animals process of measuring. Finally the caterpillar asks, “Why should the biggest… or the heaviest… biggest mouth, or longest ears” eat first? “If we measure from the shortest… lightest, shortest ears… smallest mouth” I’m first every time. And caterpillar ate first.

Two adult guidance pages follow the story with suggestions for further use with children, the second page is a game.

Then, there are four more pages for the young child showing items in order by shortest, lightest, smallest mouth, shortest ears, tallest, heaviest, longest nose, and most legs.