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A SHAKER'S DOZEN

Name: A SHAKER'S DOZEN
Author: Kathleen Thorne-Thomsen
ISBN: 0-8118-2299-0

by Kathleen Thorne-Thomsen & Paul Rocheleau ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1999

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This counting book takes readers from the numbers one to twelve in one long, rhythmic sentence that travels with the intrinsic taste of the Shakers, its subjects (one Shaker home, two Shaker doors, three Shaker doves, etc.), through their culture. The sentence ends, appropriately (given the group’s dwindling numbers) at the notion of the Shakers eating pies “as long as they are able at a long Shaker table.” Every spread includes a brief factual comment on the objects shown, and, with the afterword, fill out the picture of Shaker life past and present. It’s an evocative, elegantly simple book, to enrich arts and social history collections; with pictures of pies, dolls, hats, and tools, it also works for the learning-to-count crowd. (bibliography) (Picture book. 5-9)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-8118-2299-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1999

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

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ON THE STAIRS

by Julie Hofstrand Larios ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1999

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As she lovingly details the comfortable disarray of a perfectly splendid staircase, a small mouse counts off the stairs in a game she has clearly played many times. The rhyme skips and leaps from “First step. Rain step,” because that’s where her puddle boots are, to the third step, where the window seat is, to the sixth, where she can peer into her own bedroom, to the eleventh where the night light lives, and the twelfth where she can go back down and start again. She’s accompanied by her little sister and readers catch a glimpse at the end of a mother, father, and baby, too. The details are whimsical, and the rhyme infectious. A real treat, perfectly centered on a small child’s perceptions and experience. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999

ISBN: 1-886910-34-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

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SPOTS

COUNTING CREATURES FROM SKY TO SEA

by Carolyn Lesser ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1999

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In this visual feast from Lesser and Regan (Dig Hole, Soft Mole, 1996), so striking are the oil and gouache wildlife portraits that, despite the counting book framework, numbers are nearly an afterthought. Every spread has a you-are-there quality, as if readers are peering into a rock-strewn stream to spy six fire salamanders or scuba diving alongside one leopard ray in the murky blue. The book opens with an invitation—“Spotted creatures/wait for you. Snoop and find them/count them, too”—as Lesser toys with language, using active verbs to describe the kinds of spots found on each animal: “Staring, rippling, jetting spots” dapple five reef squid; “loping, gazing, nibbling spots” grace seven reticulated giraffes. Although spots are the unifying theme, the creatures have been carefully selected not only for their markings but for their habitats or biomes, identified and outlined in a final glossary. (Picture book. 4-8)