Abigail

I never thought I would be one to write or share book reviews of kids books and honestly, this is less of a review and more of a preview!

Why? Because we really can't judge a book by its cover, and I personally am always wishing I could just see the 'inside' of a book that I am wanting to buy for Lilly or place on hold at the library. Therefore, I am writing these little previews to give other readers, mamas and teachers a glimpse into some books I have deemed as 'excellent'. Which really only means:

1) I loved the illustrations! (A picture is worth one thousand words right?)

2) I thought the story was unique, motivating, inspiring, or simply cute.

3) It has excellent educational qualities for early learning and foundation building.

Books I preview here might actually be all of those things. In that case, it is certainly a must-have and you might find that these 'must-haves' are also books you'd enjoy having either in your personal collection or your library checkouts.

So without further rambling, the first preview on my page goes to... Abigail!

Meet, Abigail by Catherine Rayner, y'all!

First of all, how adorable is that watercolour giraffe?! I can't even.

I 100% judged this book by its cover. Lilly is quite into Africa and all of her amazing animals lately so I typed giraffes into our library search engine the other day and up popped, Abigail.

I took one look at her cute giraffe face and put this book on hold!

Enough about that though, let's look more at the book (that's the point of this whole post isnt it?) Well, the book follows a cute and curious giraffe, named Abigail, who loves to find things she can count.The premise or point of this entire story is actually counting. It's about numbers and assigning numbers to objects which is a big early numeracy skill for toddlers. Being able to say the numbers 1 through 10 is usually something we see emerging for toddlers right around 24 months or two years old. After that, we want children to begin to notice things about those numbers that they've memorized to count like making statements when comparing those numbers like "This is a lot" or "This isn't very many." etc. or being able to answer or show "How many is two?" or "How many is this?" even "Can you choose four of _____?" So the teacher part of me was immediately I was into this book when I realized it was a number story! As a teacher, I find it hard sometimes to just look at things as they are rather than disecting something for its educational potential. Anyways, this cutie patootie Abigail had my full attention. She finds things in the story that are all around her to count starting with the spots on a little ladybug...1,2,3.

I also liked that the numbers were big and in simple font. They also were a main focal point on the page. This continues on for the entire book. On the next page, she counts the leaves on a tree... 4, 5, 6... and goes on to count many other things, including an attempt at counting stripes on her friend Zebra and spots on her friend Cheetah.

So why did I pick this one to preview?

Well, I obviously love this book for its illustrations. I am obsessed with any kind of watercolour image in a book. It's my favourite medium for the images in children's books. Soft, gentle, appropriately stimulating and allows the child to focus on the story itself rather than being drawn in by only the pictures.

I also loved that it was a counting story... not just a counting book. You know the ones where there are just numbers and objects on a page to count? Here we have an actual story with characters and a plot about numbers and math! The way the numbers are simply laid out on each page was something I also appreciated. All in all, I found this soft and sweet approach to numbers, counting or learning to count so accessible for Lilly. It helped that the animals were some of her current favourites, too!