Counting Christmas would be a great book to read to a young audience learning to count to ten. I love how this book showed the numbers numerical and spelled out. The book starts at ten and goes down to one naming different things they do with that number while counting down till Christmas. For example: "eight cookies for Santa baked by little elves. Five Christmas stars hang over drowsy heads." The vibrant and big illustrations are very eye catching and I think any young kid would love this book. ( )

Worth the $1 price tag at Goodwill. H loves counting books so this will be enjoyed for a season or two. ( )

AR 1.8
Pts 0.5

Interest Level: Kindergarten - Grade 1

Genre/Theme:

General Fiction

Topics:

Counting and Numbers
Counting and Numbers
Christmas

Katz, Karen. Counting Christmas. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2003. Print.

After reading “Counting Christmas”, the most obvious feature is the large bright and colorful illustrations. The book is clearly targeting very young audience in the range of 1 to 3 years old. It is a simple counting book that simply counts Christmas items. The one feature that surprised me most was that the book counted in a descending fashion, where it started at ten and finished at one. Although, the book, is colorful and cheerful, the illustrations used were not always effective in clearly depicting the visual illustration of the counting process. I also felt that given the very young audience the book is appropriate for, it would have been better if the counting was in the natural ascending logic.
When comparing “Counting Christmas” and “Addition Annie” it is clear that “Addition Annie” is best suited for older readers than Counting Christmas. Not only that, but I believe “Addition Annie” utilized more effective illustrations that better supported the book’s goal and made it a better learning tool. Although “Counting Christmas” was very colorful and interesting to follow, I believe its use of descending logic and overly crowded illustrations somewhat diminished its effectiveness in delivering the lesson to its very young readers. ( )

I really like the colorful pictures and the way each number is spelled out as well as numerical.