Learn to Count with Northwest Coast Native Art

by Ryan Cranmer (Illustrator), Ryan Bulpitt (Illustrator), Eric Parnell (Illustrator)

Colorful book for learning to count to 10 using animal images crated by First Nations and Native artists

Genres: Childrens, Picture Books, Counting

10 pages, Board book

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been a recent big hit before bedtime. Rowan is starting to register the whole counting thing, though one and two are about the only obvious numbers he can say. Still, he’ll say whatever he thinks works for the other numbers, though he’s mostly just here for the intonation. He’s still a little slow at counting along with a book, but man he’s a champ at counting his way down the stairs.

Anyway, this is a beautifully illustrated book, where he has as much fun making animal noises as he does not counting the number of animals on the page. Native art from a collection of Pacific Northwest native artists offers him a very different artistic style, with a collection of animals that aren’t the usual generic farm animals. Instead you have animals significant not just as a food source, but that carry more resonant cultural, spiritual, and environmental importance.

And it of course helps that you can read it with the room lights on or off. Solid bedtime option indeed.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

My 3 yr old daughter chose this book and at first glance I didn't think I was going to like this book, but I did, in fact I loved it. The illustrations are Northwest coast native art and they are great, my kids loved them. Great book for teaching the kids to learn to count.

[Elizabeth]

Because there are so many interior lines in this art style, some of the pages feel a little overwhelmingly busy to me, to the point where it can be a little difficult to pick out the animals (I'm thinking mainly of 4, which has two wolf heads poking out from behind a larger wolf). I like a lot of the art, though (I think partly I need repeated exposure for this unfamiliar-to-me art style to grow on me), and it mostly feels clear enough.