Ten Items or Less: A Counting Book

by s-calmenson-terri-super, Terri Super (Illustrator)

Mandy helps her mother count their items in the supermarket, where they can get in the express lane with no more than ten items.

Genres: Childrens, Picture Books, Fiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like that this book combines grocery shopping with counting. I like that we can make a connection between this book and going to the grocery store. This is an older book, and while it does have ethnic diversity in it, only women are doing the shopping. The only men in the book are working at the store, not shopping.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the "a Little Golden Book" series.
Mandy helps her mother count their items in the supermarket, where they can get in the express lane with no more than ten items.
Estimate from others in the series:
Age Range: 3 - 7 years
Grade Level: Preschool - 2

[Drucilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great counting book. The location of the grocery store is a great way to teach counting.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my favorite book as a child. I still have it and many other Little Golden Books. I'm looking forward to sharing them with my niece and nephew.

[Kylie Abecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is brilliantly well done. It makes counting not only seem fun, but it gives the kids the idea of the game for whenever we go to the shops.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A childhood favorite

[Janey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of my favorite books as a kid. It helped me learn to count and understand how shopping worked. As I approach 40 and try to get my fiber intake up, I still to this day call the fibery flake/granola cereals Munchy Crunchy Morning, no matter what their actual name is.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now, I recall the book Ten Items or Less: A Counting Book by Stephanie Calmenson from when I was a kid. 😎

For one thing, the main protagonist, Mandy (whose surname isn’t given), sure is awesomely amazing, mostly because she shows how she’s quite well-behaved through her actions when she helps her mother find things they need while they’re at the supermarket.

If I had to pick one (or more than one) part of this book I’d consider to be my favorite, it would be these ones:

Mandy liked shopping with her mommy. She liked to sit in the supermarket wagon and ride up and down the aisles. (p. 2)

When her mommy couldn’t find things, Mandy helped her.

“Do you see the cookies we like?” Mommy asked.

Mandy looked on the shelves for the orange box with a picture of a clown juggling cookies. She saw red boxes, yellow boxes, green boxes....
“There they are!” she called, pointing all the way to the top shelf.

“Thank you,” said Mommy. She put an orange box in the wagon. (p. 3-4)

I admire this book, because it’s a great book to read, and because it can help teach counting; plus, the supermarket (which is also called a grocery store) is a great place to help kids learn about counting, and the game of “Ten Items or Less” is an awesome one to learn, too.

Finally, I highly recommend this book to those who like kids’ books and books about the grocery store, and I give it five stars (although ten stars would be even better). 🔟⭐😎

[Gingaeru · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't ignore that "The Saggy Baggy Elephant" is drawn here with a pair of distinctly human buttocks. To compound the odd humor of the situation, Mandy fawningly points to the book as he moons her from the cover (I refer to the illustrations within "Ten Items or Less", not to the cover where he's drawn a little more accurately).

So I know the top review is quite a few years old, but it deeply bothers me when someone casually states something so contradictory to reality. In this case, they specifically mentioned a complete lack of male shoppers in this book, but be assured, it contains at least seven adult males in the act of shopping! I don't know how they could have missed them because some are in the foreground or even the only person on the page. (The very first spread has a man exiting towards you, embracing his two bags of groceries with a satisfied smile on his face, two pages later, a mustached fellow with a shopping basket in his left hand accidentally upsets a stack of cans, etc.) Maybe that reviewer has some rare disorder that renders non-staff males completely invisible to them?
...

[Cws]

JE-Gol-C