Ten Tiny Babies
by
Karen Katz
board book
children's fiction, ages 1-4
This book helps children learn to count to 10 by introducing a cast of 10 adorable tots one by one. I was a bit confused by the book at first because some of the words are big and some are little and over to the side. I skipped a few of the words and the book didn't make sense, then I realized my mistake.
In this case, though, do not judge the book on my opinion. There is a certain 2 1/2 year old that LOVES this book and asks for it all the time. When someone is not reading it to him he stares at the pictures. I think I will have to buy him his own copy. He adores these cherubic tykes and the caregivers who are pictured on the last page of the book and although the book does not say it, the boy always adds "Mommy and Daddy" to the words at the end of the book.
The happy children are dressed in playful colors and patterns and represent a rainbow of ethnic groups. I don't know if they are orphans in an orphanage or kids at a daycare center or an adopted family or what, but they all go to bed in the end in beds all lined up in a row like Disney's Seven Dwarfs.
I think I have read this book at least 20 times in the six weeks or so that I have had it checked out, so it has started to grow on me. It does have a pleasant rhyming scheme once it is read correctly.
It looks like Karen Katz has written quite a few books, so I will see if I can interest my patron in "Ten Tiny Tickles" by the same author as a change-up.
I thought it was somewhat presumptuous to label this book as "a classic board book", but now that I have read it a number of times, they are right. It does have the makings of a classic even though the book is only 3 years old.
