Children’s Picture Book Review

Gorbachev, Valeri. Christopher Counting. New York: Philomel, 2008.

Characters: Christopher Rabbit; Ms. Goat; Mother Rabbit

Setting: School; home; outdoors

Theme: Counting; Animals

Genre: Children’s Fiction

Golden quote: “He went out to the porch and stared at the night sky. “ One, two, three….oh no!” cried Christopher. “It’s impossible! There are just too many stars to count.”
Summary: Christopher Rabbit was very happy he learned how to count one to ten in school. After school he continued practicing he counted everything he found on his way home and told his Mother Rabbit he had learned how to count and counted everything in his room. He went outside to play basketball with his friends and counted the number of baskets they made. Before he went to sleep he had his dinner and he counted the amount of peas and carrots in his soup.
Audience: 2 year olds- 5 year olds boys.

Curriculum ties: Learning the how to count one to ten and recognizing colors and animals.

Personal response: This book would be great for little boys that are learning to count because the main character is a boy rabbit. The colors are very bright and children can also learn about colors. I like the way the author made Christopher Rabbit’s day full of adventure he plays basketball; hide-and-seek; throws stones into the pond she really focuses in the activities that little boys like to do. That’s way I think this book would be ideal for boys to learn how to count.

This is a story about a little rabbit named Christopher that loves to count. In the beginning of the story he is in class learning and practicing how to count. He then returns home and counts everything, dishes, fish in his aquarium,books in his backpack and crayons. Up until the very end of the story Christopher loves counting things that he passes up playing with his friends so he can still count his numbers. Finally he realizes that counting is apart of hide and go seek. This book also demonstrated a great quality of artwork. Looked like pencil drawing or sketches colored in with watercolors. I enjoyed the creativity in this fun story about the rabbit's love for numbers. This would be a great book for early readers up to first grade. ( )

Great book for teaching students how to count to ten, and how to count everything from pencils in their backpack to stars at night.

This is a good idea for a picture book--a little bunny who likes to practice counting by counting everything he comes in contact with. But the execution of the idea could have been a lot better. The story felt meandering, and there wasn't really a problem that the main character had to solve. The illustrations were cute--my favorite was the last spread showing the main character trying to count the stars. ( )