Know the Numbers: Dog Loves Counting by Louise Yates

DOG LOVED BOOKS.

HE LOVED READING THEM LATE INTO THE NIGHT AND DIDN'T LIKE TO LEAVE THEM FOR VERY LONG.

But even with books, there can be too much of a good thing. Dog needs more sleep, but counting the customary sheep doesn't do it.

Being an eager reader, Dog turns to his animal book to find some more sleep-inducing  animals to count.  He finds a page with one big egg on it.  He's on his way to counting himself to sleep. Except that something exciting happens--the egg hatches out into a baby dodo.

"BABY DODO, WE ARE TWO!"

Persistent page-turning soon reveals the perfect number 3 animal,  the three-toed sloth!  A turn of the page shows a camel. Camels have four legs, so that's easy to remember, and then there's the five-lined skink, and the sleepy-time count is on its way.

In short order Dog has found a fly with six legs, a raccoon with seven stripes, a spider with eight legs, and a nine-banded  armadillo.  But ten is hard: nothing has ten bands or ten legs that he can find, until he sees the picture of a crab--with eight legs plus two claws!  It's one to ten and back again!

At last the countdown to bedtime is ready to begin:

ADVENTURES WERE NEVER FAR AWAY--HE COULD COUNT ON IT! 

Louis Yates continues Dog's education in her third book, Dog Loves Counting (Knopf, 2013), with the same soft palette and mellow illustrations that made her other popular books in the series, Dog Loves Books and Dog Loves Drawing, winners. Publishers Weekly says, "Yates’s loose drawings give the animals personality to spare as Dog proves that the right story can be a ticket to dreamland—and that there’s plenty of fun to be had there."

Hey, Mom! When's Dinner? Seven Hungry Babies by Candace Fleming

SEVEN HUNGRY BABIES OPEN THEIR BEAKS WIDE. "FEED US, FEED US!" THE LITTLE ONES CRIED.

"OF COURSE, MY PRECIOUS CUDDLE FLUFFS," MAMA BIRD COOED.
"I'LL FLY TO THE TALL GRASS TO FIND YOU SOME FOOD!!

FLAPPA-FLAP, SWOOP, SWOOP, ZOOM ZOOM. YUM!

G-U-U-U-LP!

But mothers' work is never done, and as Mama Bird returns with a different beakful of bird chow from every foraging place she knows--meadow, orchard, and schoolyard--she manages to satisfy just one chick, only to find another wide awake and with beak wide open, begging. So when she at last concludes the countdown and satisfies the seventh nestling and all are dozing off at last, she heaves a sign of well-deserved relief. Her work here is done--for the moment.

SEVEN QUIET BABIES FINALLY NAP IN THE NEST.

"AH," COOED MAMA BIRD, "NOW I GET TO--

"PEEP, PEEP, PEEP!" SEVEN HUNGRY CHICKS OPEN THEIR BEAKS WIDE.

"OH, NO, NOT THIS TIME!" MAMA CHIRPS... "IT'S DADDY'S TURN TO FLY!"

Filled with humor and playful wordplay, Candace Fleming's latest, Seven Hungry Babies (Atheneum, 2010) sets off its bright, witty illustrations with delightful text design. The words soar, sweep, swoop, and flap across the pages like, well, Mama Bird on the wing, while Eugene Yelchin gives his bird family witty expressions--the babies' confident demands, Mama's loving and finally exhausted determination, and Daddy Bird's quizzical look when he realizes that he is now on duty--which will elicit chuckles. This one works on several levels--as a simple funny story, as a counting up and down book, as a tribute to mothers, and as a subtle statement on the value of both Mama and Daddy in a real two-parent family.