HOW TO COUNT 1 TO 5 IN FIVE LANGUAGES

Beginning language lessons for little ones.

Each spread in this board book introduces a different child on the verso and the language they speak. First is Santiago, a boy with brown skin and short, dark hair who speaks Spanish. His Spanish dialogue counting five oranges is highlighted in white under his portrait, with each line given its English translation below it. On the facing page there’s a picture of an orange tree labeled with the numerals 1 through 5 pointing to each orange and the words written in Spanish for these numbers. Subsequent spreads show Feng, a Chinese girl who counts bicycles in Mandarin; a white girl named Kirsty counting other children in English; Thomas, a black boy, counting giraffes in French; and Taro, who simply counts up to five in Japanese, with written characters for the numbers on a chalkboard (and five cats in the illustration though they aren’t named in the text). The pièce de résistance in the book’s design is a vertical strip of buttons to the side of the recto, labeled with each child’s face and the language they speak. Press the button and a recording of a child counting from one to five in the respective languages plays, offering readers the chance to learn by hearing. The companion book, How to Say I Love You, follows a similar pattern, highlighting the same languages but depicting different children as their speakers.

Gives little readers a head start on global citizenship.