100 Days Of School (32 pp.; $21.90; Sept.; 0-7613-1271-4): Readers will want to try the more interesting variations on math Harris has devised, e.g., addition and subtraction using clowns, trains, blackberry pie, and centipedes. Harris demonstrates that numbers can be broken down into recognizable units that can be manipulated and remembered: If “10 tired children all take off their shoes, what do you get? Lots of bare feet . . . and 100 toes!” Johnson’s brilliant artwork will make children forget they’re learning, complementing the whimsical text as it slyly works in the basics. A math-class must, but also at home in story hours. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7613-1271-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Millbrook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The creators of The War Between the Vowels and the Consonants (1996) follow up with an equally bombastic excursion to the land of Wontoo, whose number-shaped inhabitants are either orderly and even-tempered, or fond of odd dress and behavior. Stranded travelers from the Land of Letters, X and Y wander about making shocked observations—“ ‘By Jove, X! How did we not notice this earlier? . . . Evens have only Even children. Yet two Odd parents also seem to have only Even children.’ ”—but by the end, admitting to each other that they’ve “gone native,” they marry and settle down to raise mixed-symbol families. The illustrations pose button-eyed digits with stick limbs and wisps of clothing in a jellybean-colored town, coexisting peaceably and greeting their visitors’ incredulity with polite smiles. It’s a clever way to validate cultural differences as well as introduce some number concepts, but children are not likely to understand just what the Letters’ parochialism and exaggerated pomposity are lampooning. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 10, 1999
ISBN: 0-374-30343-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
From the back seat it comes, steady as a metronome, deadly as an asp: “Are we there yet?” Walters understands that the only true way to tame this beast is to impart a sense of geography and to teach the fundamentals of map reading, which help convey a sense of movement through space. Every spread comes with an inset map to measure a father and son’s progress to grandmother’s house (notched off in ten-mile intervals). The map gives both a notion of orientation as well as a hint at the topography they are passing through. Walters’s versified travelogue explains what’s happening outside the window in greater detail and features an exchange that is repeated every 10 miles: “ ‘Are we there yet, Daddy?’ Daddy says, ‘No.’ ‘How much farther do we have to go?’ ‘Just look at the map, Son. Then you will know.’ “ The numeric countdown, and the progress the travelers are making toward their destination, add drama, and Schindler’s maps have a plain-spoken clarity that make them easy to understand and enjoy. (Picture book. 3-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-670-87402-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
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