10 DOGS … another cute counting book? No, not at all. For a start, there are also 10 sausages involved which makes this far more fun, but also challenging.
‘3 dogs with more sausages … 7 dogs with less, 4 dogs guard the sausages … 6 dogs not impressed.’
British author and Kate Greenaway Medal winner, Emily Gravett, has created this humorous and delightfully engaging adventure into early mathematics. The end papers are classic, with the front ones having 10 fat, glossy sausages lined up on a serviette and the back ones having only the grease stains and a couple of crumbs. Ten dogs of all shapes, sizes, colours and temperaments jump and run and scrabble to get the sausages that are on the kitchen table. Gravett’s use of bright colours and exuberant movement brings the dogs to life … you can almost hear them barking.
Of course, the perfectly rhyming and rhythmic text, with ‘snatching and catching’ and ‘hunting and hiding’, skilfully portrays doggie personalities. The ingenuity comes in her subtle introduction of concepts such as more, less, subtractions and fractions including using the word ‘half’.
This is a fantastic book, and if her other book, “10 Cats” is anything like it, they are a must for early childhood at home and school. Reading aloud will be fun and there is plenty of detail to search for in the illustrations. I can see little fingers pointing out sausages as they count and lots of laughs at the loveable pooches, while subliminally learning to love Mathematics. The important message it also slowly reveals, is about the joy of cooperation and sharing.
10 DOGS … another cute counting book? No, not at all. For a start, there are also 10 sausages involved which makes this far more fun, but also challenging.
