Out for the Count: A Counting Adventure

by Kathryn Cave, Chris Riddell (Illustrator)

A bedtime adventure about a boy who tries to fall asleep by counting animals, pirates, and ghosts

Genres: Picture Books, Mathematics, Childrens

1 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Kathryn Cave is an award-winning British children's book author. She was awarded the very first international UNESCO prize for Children's and Young People's Literature in the Service of Tolerance for Something Else. The book was later made into a TV series by TV Loonland. A theatre company has adapted it as a children's production, and ran a UK tour in 2009.

Reviews

[Adrian]

Last thing at night, when Dad goes round to switch the central heating down and put the cat out for the night, all children should be tucked up tight.

We do love all things Chris Riddell and are always on the lookout for books he has illustrated, even if they are for a younger audience.

This is one such children's book. A fun counting adventure at bedtime whilst trying to get to sleep. The illustrations make the difference and elevate this from an ordinary book to something a little more special.

I also like that the book features a board-game of sorts which can be easily enjoyed with all the family with the addition on a single die. 4 stars.

[Amber Kazen]

My son seemed to like this book. It had some math and poetry which I liked. I liked the front of the book had a fun game to play that was unique. We plan on passing this book along to my nephew.

[Kathryn]

This is about a boy named Tom who can't sleep and decides to count sheep to help him fall asleep. His counting adventure soon begins when he counts many different animals and scary characters. He escapes each new character, but not after he is done counting all of them. This is a good book for counting or to review counting with the students. It goes into bigger numbers that might challenge the students to count bigger numbers. It is a good review for students and they might not even know they are learning with the fun illustrations.

[Kathy]

A small boy is told to count sheep to help him fall asleep, but soon is counting bats, pirates, ghosts and tigers. Most books go to either 10 or 20, this one goes all the way up to 100 and offers opportunities to count in groupings - twos, tens, etc.
My favorite part is that you can either find and count the creatures/objects in the amazing illustrations or you can count the shadow versions on the side, which makes counting a 100 objects a whole lot easier!

[Kayla Jensen]

This book was read to us in class by Kathryn and it was a great book that demostrated how to use poems on each page. All the pages and poems together created the story that was very engaging for students and would get them counting. This would be a great book to read to your students when you are about to teach them how to count as an anticipatory set. It was a very cute and fun book filled with awesome illustrations!

[Blakeley Norris]

This is a good story to read to children at bedtime or ones that have a hard time going to sleep. A child cannot sleep so his dad tells him to count sheep. Well he does, but they lead him into all sorts of adventures with other animals too. This book also could be used to do a lesson on word families and it rhymes.

[Amy Heilman]

A boy named Tom cannot sleep, and his father suggests that he count sheep. Tom begins to count sheep, but then becomes very frightened as he starts to count vampire bats and scary creatures. He speeds away by foot, or car and is then faced with 88 ghosts. This is a great book for students learning to count and they can count all the creatures on the page.

[Allison]

This is a great book to use when teaching math! Very cute!

[Breana Vining]

This is a story that can be used to connect with math concepts. It deals with numbers for one to one-hundred.

[Bailey]

This is great book to use when counting to one hundred. It can also be used to teach place value.

[Ashley Levan]

A good book to use when teaching students place value and numbers to 100.

[Sasha]

Another great math book. It is a little more adavance since it goes up to 100. I would probably use this book when introducing base ten or more adavance levels of counting.

[Kristin]

THIS IS A GREAT BOOK TO USE IN MATH THAT STUDNTS CAN USE DRY ERASE BOARDS TO EXPRESS THE NUMBERS THEY HEAR IN THE STORY.

[Lindsey Rutledge]

This book would be excellent for introducing place value. The illustrations are great and the students would be able to follow along clearly.

[Erica Tucker]

Use this story when teaching children to recognize numbers from 1-100.