An adorably freckled farm boy caring for his five little ducks teaches young children what is involved when the five suddenly become ten. With a simple format that keeps the youngest of readers in mind, this newest in the MathStart series is sure to be a hit with both adults and children. The tale follows a young boy as he feeds and cares for his flock of ducks. Along the way, children count the objects in the pictures, with help from a bubble in each corner that visually represents the correct number of objects and the numeral. There is one boy with two hands, three sacks of food, four bundles of hay for a nest, and five ducks. When they go for a walk and return with five new friends, the boy must double everything. He now needs six sacks of food to feed the ten ducks, and eight bundles of hay for their nest. But he is confused as to how he can have four hands, until he also realizes that he must double himself—he needs a new friend, too. Murphy (The Grizzly Gazette, below, etc.) includes an afterword to help readers get the most from the concepts presented. The section includes activities to help youngsters learn the concept, suggestions for extending the learning, and a reading list of other books that deal with similar concepts. Petrone’s (Uh-Oh!, not reviewed, etc.) illustrations are simple cartoons with bold colors; the subjects are kept large enough to draw and hold children’s attention. Readers will delight in all the fun they’re having on the farm while they’re learning some new math. (Picture book/nonfiction. 4-7)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-028922-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2002
Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees.
After Duncan finds his crayons gone—yet again—letters arrive, detailing their adventures in friendship.
Eleven crayons send missives from their chosen spots throughout Duncan’s home (and one from his classroom). Red enjoys the thrill of extinguishing “pretend fires” with Duncan’s toy firetruck. White, so often dismissed as invisible, finds a new calling subbing in for the missing queen on the black-and-white chessboard. “Now everyone ALWAYS SEES ME!…(Well, half the time!)” Pink’s living the dream as a pastry chef helming the Breezy Bake Oven, “baking everything from little cupcakes…to…OTHER little cupcakes!” Teal, who’s hitched a ride to school in Duncan’s backpack, meets the crayons in the boy’s desk and writes, “Guess what? I HAVE A TWIN! How come you never told me?” Duncan wants to see his crayons and “meet their new friends.” A culminating dinner party assembles the crayons and their many guests: a table tennis ball, dog biscuits, a well-loved teddy bear, and more. The premise—personified crayons, away and back again—is well-trammeled territory by now, after over a dozen books and spinoffs, and Jeffers once more delivers his signature cartooning and hand-lettering. Though the pages lack the laugh-out-loud sight gags and side-splittingly funny asides of previous outings, readers—especially fans of the crayons’ previous outings—will enjoy checking in on their pals.
Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593622360
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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