The Amulet of Samarkand (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 1)

The Amulet of Samarkand

Jonathan Stroud

Though I work in a bookstore, I discovered 1 2 3 when my brother gave it to my one-year-old daughter with the intention of helping her learn to count. At first glance I thought it was a nice counting book with beautiful illustrations. Once we read it a couple times, though, I began to notice details I had missed that made reading this book so much more than reciting numbers.

Each page represents a number and also offers delightful hidden surprises. The number six, for example, stars Hansel and Gretel and six shiny sweets, six lollipops outside the witch’s house, six mushrooms in the yard, six white birds, and six cats sulking about. Every page is a scavenger hunt with tons of little details tucked into the nooks and crannies of the illustrations that reinforce that page’s number. Children (and their parents) will enjoy recognizing characters they know well, with spreads depicting scenes from fairy tales from Sleeping Beauty and Jack and the Beanstalk to The Red Shoes and Little Red Riding Hood. There are often characters from other stories slipped into the background, foreshadowing their dedicated page to come. If you look out the window of the Gingerbread Man’s kitchen, for example, you will see Jack’s beanstalk off in the distance and the Ugly Duckling’s pond on the horizon.

This is one counting book I won’t mind reading over and over because I find new details each time we read it. My daughter, at one, is captivated by the illustrations. She loves pointing out the different animals and details. I can only imagine that as she gets older, she will love the treasure-hunt aspects this book offers even more than I do. I think it will help make counting and learning math a lot of fun for her!

Format

Trade Paperback (Reprint)

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CRITICS HAVE SAID

“One of the liveliest and most inventive fantasies of recent years.” – Booklist

IF YOU LOVE THIS BOOK, THEN TRY:

Alexander, Lloyd. The Book of Three. Henry Holt, 1964. (And others in the Chronicles of Prydain series.)

Billingsley, Franny. The Folk Keeper. Simon & Schuster, 1999.

Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. The Conch Bearer. Roaring Brook, 2003.

Farmer, Nancy. House of the Scorpion. Simon & Schuster, 2002.

Gaiman, Neil. The Graveyard Book. HarperCollins, 2008.

Garcia, Laura Gallego. The Legend of the Wandering King. Scholastic, 2005.

Ibbotson, Eva. The Secret of Platform 13. Dutton, 1998.

Knudsen, Michelle. The Dragon of Trelian. Candlewick, 2009.

LaFevers, R. L. Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos. Houghton Mifflin, 2007.

Landy, Derek. Skulduggery Pleasant. HarperCollins, 2007.

L’Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time. Farrar, 1962.

Pratchett, Terry. The Wee Free Men. HarperCollins, 2003. (And others in the Tiffany Aching series.)

Pullman, Philip. The Golden Compass. Knopf, 1996. (And others in His Dark Materials series.)

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Scholastic, 1998. (And others in the Harry Potter series.)

Stroud, Jonathan. The Golem’s Eye. (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 2) Miramax/Hyperion, 2004.

Stroud, Jonathan. Heroes of the Valley. Disney/Hyperion, 2009.

Stroud, Jonathan. Ptolemy’s Gate. (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 3) Hyperion, 2006.

Stroud, Jonathan. Bartimaeus: The Ring of Solomon. Hyperion, 2010.