For what it is, I guess it’s fine:  it’s got some beautiful color photos, and it counts to 10, and it names things in the photos.  It’s got a nice binding.  But with such little information, it serves a very limited audience.  I’d rather spend my limited budget on counting books that also offered other information, so that it would serve multiple purposes.

It’s got some really good features, but it’s got some problems, too.  Among the good stuff are simple text, a sturdy binding, color photos.  I also like the way it makes a very deliberate connection between arial photos and drawn maps, in order to illustrate the way maps depict areas from above.  It does a fairly good job of describing different purposes for different types of maps, but I wish it explained the purpose of colors on maps to represent different things (sometimes political boundaries, sometimes elevations, etc.).  Also, the picture of the floor plan they use doesn’t look like any floor plan for any house ever constructed, which again falls into the trap of over-simplification of information for young children.

It’s got all the basics of fire safety covered in clear, concise, easily understood sentences: 2-3 sentences per page, in large font, opposite full-sized color photos that support the text on each page.  The size is appropriate for small hands, and the binding is sturdily constructed.  It could have been stronger if it offered children more “why”s to go with the dos & don’ts.

My biggest pet peeve with books for young children is when they try to simplify the information so much that they over-simplify it to the point of misinformation.  This book is all about how the scale on a map sets the distance represented on that map.  Then they draw the maps with giant sized icons that don’t fit the scale — one map makes it look like a road is half a mile across, and one makes it look like a bird cage is 20 feet tall.

Strictly a book for the youngest audiences.  Three hens try to work up the courage to go for a ride in the farm truck, but they are scared of the noise it makes and of the unknown world beyond the farm.  They decide to go together, but after Pip gets into the truck, the other two make an excuse to stall, and while they’re gone the engine revs, Pip gets scared by the noise and hides her eyes until it stops, and when she looks around she thinks the rest of the wide world looks just like the farm, until the other hens inform her she never really went anywhere, and they all decide sitting in the wheelbarrow is more their speed.  In some respects, it is a book about facing up to one’s fears, but at the same time, it’s suggesting that venturing away from home is something to be scared of.  Also, the text is written in such simple sentences as to be stilted.

The fun illustrations are as charming as in the other grandma and grandpa books by this author.  The text follows a day-of-the-week pattern, describing something different each day that Anya cooks with her grandma, and what they do with what they make, each item also representing something one eats at a different time of day.  On Saturday they make a cake, which they save instead of eating right away, because on Sunday Anya’s dad and dog arrive and they have a party.

It’s trying to cover too much information in a too simplified format for that information.  The result is shallow, surface statements, that seem a bit disjointed and unorganized. It’s bound to leave young readers with more unanswered questions that any real clear understanding.  I’d rather find a book targeting slightly older students — I think it would do it’s topic more justice if it had more words to work with.

I don’t like it when books make statements as fact that are really over-simplified generalizations.  In describing parts of a day, this one says, “In the afternoon the bus takes you home from school.” Yet not all kids ride busses.  It says, “Aftern dinner the sun sets and night falls.” Yet around here in the winter, that would likely happen before dinner.  It says, “One day rain falls. The next day the sun shines.” Yet rain could stick around for weeks on end or only last for half an hour.  It says, “Celebrations last a day.”  Yet some celebrations last a week or a month.  It says, “You celebrate your birthday.” Yet not all families do.

The simple text has lots of rhyme, rhythm, and repetition to help emergent readers, and the illustrations add meaning to the text, to share with young dinosaur fans the processes involved in digging them up, jigsawing them to make sense, and rigging them together so that museum visitor can “dig” them on display. A page in the back offers further explanatory paragraphs to explain the simple text in the body of the book.

The illustrations are cute, and it’s great that when Chick get’s fired from the egg factory for not conforming to the plain-white-oval requirements, she continues with her passion of creating uniquely shaped and painted eggs, gets discovered and becomes famous for her artwork.  But the last page, when she declares her best creations, the prettiest things she ever made, are her babies, could either be taken as a sentimental declaration for mothers to share with their children, so they know how precious they are, or it could be taken as a regression to the pre-feminism era, teaching young girls that the most important thing they can do in life is to bear children.