Zoo School

Laurie Miller Hornik; Debbie Tilley (Illustrator)

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

Reinforced (Teacher's edition)

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CRITICS HAVE SAID

The characters are clearly developed, and all of the children gradually learn about themselves and the world around them. This evenly paced novel could be shared aloud with youngsters needing a step up from Joanna Cole’s “Magic School Bus” series or read independently by those who enjoy zany school stories like Louis Sachar’s Sideways Stories from Wayside School.–School Library Journal

IF YOU LOVE THIS BOOK, THEN TRY:

Allard, Harry. Miss Nelson Is Missing. Houghton Mifflin, 1985.

Bauer, Marion Dane. A Bear Named Trouble. Clarion, 2005.

Evans, Douglas. Apple Island or, The Truth About Teachers. Front Street, 1998.

Evans, Douglas. The Classroom at the End of the Hall.Front Street, 1996.

Evans, Douglas. Math Rashes and Other Classroom Tales. Front Street, 2004.

Fleischman, Paul. Weslandia. Candlewick, 1999.

Hornik, Laurie Miller. The Secrets of Ms. Snickle’s Class. Clarion, 2001.

MacDonald, Amy. No More Nasty. Farrar, 2001.

Sachar, Louis. Sideways Stories from Wayside School. Morrow, 1985.

Sachar, Louis. Wayside School Is Falling Down. Lothrop, 1989.