Note: I received a digital galley through NetGalley. ( )

diverse picture book (ages 3-5 , counting/sorting).
* Book prominently features diverse characters: yep, Sam (the only character in the story) looks to be a brown-skinned kid of ambiguous background.

However:
* Not really that great for preschool storytime: this is really more of a one-on-one book; the text asks the readers to take a close look at each spread, and that's really not going to work well for a large crowd. The content is OK for the 3-5 year set, but it really needs more individual attention vs. a storytime group setting.
* Doesn't really fit the counting theme too well. The book assumes that you are well versed in counting already, and focuses on the sorting/matching instead.


see also: http://www.everydaydiversity.com/2017/07/sam-sorts-by-marthe-jocelyn.html ( )

Great concept book to help with counting. sorting, colors, textures and more. I love the collage layered illustrations. It's simple and works well. I could see a child sitting with the book for a long time trying to do what it says on each page. ( )

Marthe Jocelyn has written another great concept book, this one about categorizing. Sam's things are in a mess. It is time to clean up the pile of stuff. As he tries to organize everything, he quickly realizes that all his things fit into categories, many of them in more then one. How will he ever get his things sorted at this rate? When the author cleverly introduces Venn Diagrams, I was hooked. What a great book to teach this concept to young learners. The illustrations are wonderfully done in cut paper images that are colourful and eye-catching. A wonderful book for kindergarten classrooms and families. The publisher generously provided me with a copy of this book via Netgalley.
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This book is busy. For children who can follow along well it is a great way to learn counting and sorting. For a child for whom so much going on is hard to grasp it may be difficult.

Sam is a little boy whose room is a mess, as is often the case for young children when they have a lot of toys. He sets out to put things right. He sorts by colour, by category, and other ways that he thinks of.

It is a good book to help learn some math skills. The illustrations are bright and interesting. ( )