Review Detail

HOW TO COUNT TO ONE is a silly and delightful picture book that will charm preschoolers and early elementary school aged readers. The premise of the book is simple - in this book, readers will only be asked to count to one. On each page, they are given a new challenge in order to count to one. The text is written directly to readers with questions and reactions throughout.

What I loved: This was such a clever and silly concept that children who understanding counting will get quite a kick out of. Whereas other books may ask them to count to higher numbers, this book only has them count to one, but it does it in clever ways. While it begins simply with only one object to count, it soon sets up whole scenes where there is one thing for them to locate and count. For instance, a page filled with worms has one of the worms wearing a disguise, and it is this worm that children are assigned to count. In another page, there are tons of pictures/paintings, but children are instructed only to count the one with the cake on it. If children do insist on more of a challenge, they are invited to count all the objects in the book, and the backmatter includes 100 things they could count.

This book turns the traditional counting book on its head, and preschoolers and early elementary school aged readers will absolutely get a huge kick out of it. This is good, silly fun with a simple premise that is really well done. The text includes some asides and conversational language as well as questions, with space for children to answer (usually, the answer is just ONE!), so it becomes quite an interactive read. That works well for this age group, as they will definitely buy into the joke and laugh along.

As another cool thing, Nosy Crow has recorded an audiobook of this one with sounds for when to turn the pages that you can download using a QR code on the back. The audiobook is super-fun and really well done, allowing young readers to listen along to the story for some early independent reading delight.

Final verdict: HOW TO COUNT TO ONE is a delightfully silly picture book that is sure to charm young readers who will become skilled at counting all the way to ONE! Highly recommend for preschoolers and young elementary school aged readers who love to laugh.