Skip to main content

If You Like... Counting Books

When it comes to back-to-school season, ABC books (also called abecedaries) tend to dominate the scene. I get it. If you're starting the school year, you're most likely gearing up to talk about the alphabet and learn about all the different letters. But something almost as fun as letters is numbers. If back to school makes you think about counting 123, then here are some awesome counting books for you!

Written by Caspar Salmon
Illustrated by Matt Hunt
Lincoln, MA: Nosy Crow Inc., 2023. Picture Book.

Do you think that you're so smart? Do you think that you can count all the numbers really high? That's great, but this book only wants you to count to one. We are just mastering counting to one. Of course, you could always try to outsmart the book. But who would want to do that? This is a very fun and goofy interactive book that will have older kids dying to practice their counting -- well past the number one.

By Emily Gravett
London: Boxer Books, Ltd., 2023. Picture Book.

Nine playful kittens, and their one sleeping mama, get caught up in a color-mixing, counting adventure. As mama naps, the mischievous kittens find cans of primary-color paint and the ten kittens are soon covered in red spots, yellow spots, and blue spots. And before long, in green, orange, and purple splats. Light on text, this book effectively teaches counting and color mixing with illustrations that are a delight to study and that are reminiscent of classic children's books.

Written by David LaRochelle
Illustrated by Lian Cho
New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 2023. Picture Book.

For readers ready to go a step beyond counting, this hilarious picture book includes subtracting and adding dragons from our 100 dragon total. As we follow our 100 dragons -- all named Broccoli -- on their wild and crazy adventures, made possible by hilarious illustrations, we are also sneakily subtracting and adding to get back to our 100 dragons. Silly but entertaining, perfect to challenge the belief that math is boring.

By Susie Ghahremani
New York: Abrams Appleseed, 2017. Picture Book.

Still ready to go beyond counting 1 to 10? In this unendingly cute picture book, simple text helps us to count and stack a group of adorably cute cats. At first, we're counting as our cats are stacking, until a stack of more than three becomes unstable -- and the cats figure out other ways to count and stack. A darling little counting book, perfect for cat lovers or anyone else.





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...

Review: A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall

A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall By Jasmine Warga New York: Harper, 2024. Fiction. 211 pages. A painting has been stolen from the Penelope L. Brooks Museum and sixth-grader Rami Ahmed is worried he's the main suspect. His mother works at the museum as the lead custodian and Rami spends a lot of time hanging out at the museum while she works. On the day the painting went missing, the only people there were the security guard Ed, the cleaning crew, and Rami. Then, a mysterious girl appears in the museum. She floats around from room to room and only Rami can see her -- and she looks exactly like the girl from the missing painting. To prove his innocence and help figure out who the floating girl is, Rami partners up with an aspiring sleuth at school named Veda and the two dive into unexpected situations as they try to solve the mystery. This is a cozy mystery that is focused mostly on characters and ambiance and only a little on the mystery itself. Don't read this book if yo...

Review: Faker

Faker By Gordon Korman New York: Scholastic Press, 2024. Fiction. 214 pages. 12-year-old Trey is used to starting over at a new school -- he has the routine perfectly memorized: make new friends, introduce his dad to the wealthy parents of his new friends, and "Houdini" themselves out of there before they get caught running their latest scam. Trey's dad is a master con artist, and Trey has just been promoted to full-partner. Their new scheme for the next big score brings them to the affluent suburb of Boxelder, TN where Trey's dad has cooked up a fake electric car company for investors to buy into. The only problem is that Trey is starting to grow tired of moving around and never putting down roots, especially after forming a fast friendship with Logan and developing a crush on Kaylee, a socially conscious girl in his class. As Trey longs for a normal life, is there any way he can convince his dad to get out of the family business? Gordon Korman is a perennial favorit...