Who's Counting?

by Nancy Tafuri

Who's counting? Every young counter in the house, that's who! As a curious puppy pads across the fields and through the barnyard, young children can use all their fingers to count the geese, moles, birds, tadpoles, and other living things that the puppy encounters. His final destination will surprise and delight the youngest and oldest fans of this Caldecott Honor Medalist.

Genres: Picture Books, Counting, Animals, Number, Mathematics, Childrens, Dogs

32 pages, Hardcover

First published May 12, 1986

About the author

Nancy Tafuri is probably best known as the creator of Have You Seen My Duckling?, a 1985 Caldecott Honor Book described by Parent’s Choice as “beautifully precise yet emotionally affecting.” Trained as a graphic designer, Tafuri has authored more than 45 books over 30 years for the very young.

When Tafuri first attempted picture book illustration in the late 1970’s picture books were aimed at five-, six-, and seven-year-olds. Tafuri’s images were considered “too graphic” for children that age. “The pictures are too big,” she was told over and over about the large, colorful shapes she drew. Finally, Tafuri’s talent was recognized and tapped at Greenwillow Books, Harper Collins Publishers.

Since then she has had the opportunity to work with Scholastic Press, Scholastic Inc., Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division and most recently Little, Brown Books For Young Readers, Little, Brown and Company.

Tafuri was born in Brooklyn, New York. For the first ten years of her life she was an only child and says that this helped her to learn to entertain herself with stories and art.

Tafuri entered the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 1964. Her first job was as an assistant art director for the publishing firm Simon & Schuster. She left two years later and married Thomas Tafuri, a fellow student at the School of Visual Arts.

The Tafuri’s opened their own graphic design studio, in 1971. Their primary product was dust jackets for hardcover books. They opened their business in New York City, but eventually moved their studio and home to Connecticut.

At this time, Nancy was able to devote all of her time to writing and illustration.

When Tafuri finally found herself illustrating children’s books, either her own or other authors’, she felt she had found her life’s calling and a strong sense of joy from creating them. She loves to take a small portion of the text and create a visual representation that children can grasp and remember. In 1989, when Cristina was born, Nancy began to feel even more strongly motivated to illustrate for children. Her work seemed even more important and more personal.

“I feel honored to be creating literature for young children. Seeing how very important the early years are in a person’s life, I can only hope that my books can contribute in some small way to that growth, with the feelings that I hope I project within those pages, through line, color, shape, and story.”

Reviews

[J9]

A good, solid, counting book, that doesn't have enough words to make it to level 1 reading status. However, all my children loved it. I'm not sure what drew their attention, perhaps the big colorful pictures. A simple book for counting up to ten, my preschoolers loved to shout out the numbers, and my 5 yr old who reads pretty well, liked to read the words, so it was a win win for us. Not something that we would read over and over again, but only because all my kids already know their numbers up to ten. It was still a good addition to our Kindergarten Basics box of books we got from the library.

[Asho]

Based on the reviews here, I think this counting book is underrated. Why?

1) The illustrations are simple and colorful and kept all three of my kids' attention. It helps that the dog looks exactly like L's beloved "Dip Dip."

2) It's fun to find the puppy on each page and realize that he is the one doing the counting.

3) There is a surprise on the final page. The big kids and I were left wondering whether one dog was counting and then went to join his friends, or whether it was a different puppy on each page. (We decided on the latter, mostly because Tafuri illustrates just one pup with a flower in his mouth; S decided he was the one that had counted the 9 flowers and thus the flower indicates that each of the dogs counted something).

4) It's just a charming little book. Very simple, with no words other than the numbers, but charming!

[Emily Bernd]

This book is predictable and in the beginning very clear about what the student is counting, but as you get farther into the book, I can see how it could get confusing for many students. I think when learning how to count, you want the illustrations to be very clear and obvious to what you should be counting.

[E]

This counting picture book has different objects on each page, while the numerical number of the object and the actual object is displayed throughout the book. This book can be used to teach spelling and the numerical formation of numbers 1-10.

[Jamie Tedesco]

A good counting and predicable book, but not so engaging because some young ones may not understand some of the things being counted, like the moles or the tadpoles. I also wasn't super impressed with the illustrations because they seems dull to me.

[Emily]

I have read this book so many times to my niece! She loves looking at and counting all of the animals in the book and requests for it to be read over and over.

[Thia]

counting

[D'metria]

This book is good for counting.

[Amy]

This is a very simple book with a familiar concept. There is sequence in counting the things the puppy encounters. There are very few words on the page. Great for children learning to count.

[Kelsey Bigelow]

Cumulative sorry line and predictable

[Taylor Darst]

A fun book to read to kids and incorporate math.

[Ashlyn Barker-Salyer]

I would label this as a good book, but not great. It's predictable for emerging readers and those learning to count. But, it doesn't have a story line to help draw the children into reading it.

[Katie Morrison]

Wish this story could be less confusing for children at some of the parts, but overall not too bad of a book. Not one that I would want in my classroom though.

[Chelsea Kimmey]

This book is a counting book but books such as these may have confusing pages for early readers as they may get confused on what they are counting based on the illustrations

[Macy Morrison]

Great for a beginning reader. teaches counting and reading.

[Ashley Brown]

The books counts farm animals from one to ten.

setting- a farm

grade- K/1st

use- I would use this during a math lesson

[Brooke]

This is the right book choice for counters who need a bit of a challenge.

[Peacegal]

3.5 STARS--Sweet, nostalgic illustrations in this basic counting book. It reminded me of an old school Sesame Street animation.

[Janet]

A counting to ten title featuring several interesting items from the natural World including three moles and eight tadpoles. And those six piglets are nice and pink.

[Aqua]

This is a lovely counting book about farm animals.