Clifford is watching over ten sleeping puppies, seen through die-cut holes. Count down with Clifford, as one by one they wake up, until there are ten wide-awake puppies, romping, playing and causing mischief.

Clifford, the big red dog takes us on his journey of trying to wake up ten little puppies so that he can play with them. He wakes up one puppy at a time, but instead of counting from one up to ten, the author counts down from ten. I found this unusual at first, but by the end of the book felt that it was a good way to teach young children to be able to count forward and backward. The book has raised plastic little "sleeping" puppies that kids can touch to count, and as each page is turned, there is one less puppy to feel on the page because he is "playing" on the hill. The illustrations were lovely, except that a couple of the puppies were painted purple or blue and had polka dots on them. I prefer for animals to be portrayed in a realistic way. Overall, it is a very cute counting book! ( )

Counting and manners when someone is taking a nap.