Count Down to Fall

Weather, Climate, & Seasons

by Fran Hawk, Sherry Neidigh (Illustrator)

Count backwards from 10 to one during one of the most colorful times of year: fall. Learn about the bright, colorful leaves and the trees from which they fall: aspen, birch, maple, oak, chestnut, linden, pine, beech, dogwood, and sweet gum. Watch the animals frolicking in the crisp, autumn air as they get ready for the approaching cold winter. The “For Creative Minds” educational section includes: Plant parts, Leaves—the shape of it all, What Good are Plants?, and Match the Leaves Activity.

Genres: Picture Books, Animals, Nature, Childrens, Storytime, Science, Mathematics

32 pages, Paperback

First published July 10, 2009

Reviews

[Dolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous illustrations highlight this counting book with an Autumn theme. The story is entertaining, with a rhyming narrative and a science lesson hidden within the tale.

There are fun activities in the back of the book that help reinforce the lesson and provide more in-depth information. We really enjoyed reading this story together and we loved looking at all of the pictures.

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent introduction to different types of leaves for the very young!

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of those books that made me stop and reverse before I even got through the second page since I was able to take notice of the illustrations in detail. As a result I have to give it props for that, especially as I didn't hold out hope for the book due to the awful illustrations of the children at the start of the book.

The book does a beautiful countdown from 10 to 1 while exploring different types of leaves in autumn colors. Each two page spread for the leaves is given one large focal picture where the tree is providing some type of service and usually as it stands in nature. At the same time these pages are bordered with a replica of what the bark of the tree looks like while each corner holds four separate illustrations showcasing the seed of the tree, the green leaf, the color leaf and what the whole tree looks like in all its autumn glory. Can I just say that the illustrations are so worth it once you get past the humans, especially with the orange colored moon.

The writing of the story itself is in small rhyming paragraphs with some better than others. Most of these couplets gives the name of the tree, the color of the leaves and either sometimes either the shape or the seed. As such this book makes for a great starter guide to some common leaves children may find in their own neighborhood.

The learning activities in the back of the book are a matching of plant parts to an illustration, a categorization activity to group leaves by shape, a lesson in the goodness of plants and matching green leaves with their colored counterparts. Most of these activities are quite easy, especially in the matching games where key words are highlighted.

This is definitely one beautiful book I would want to keep in my own personal library and would suggest it for those who like to participate either in the seasons, would like to get started in identifying leaves or wanting to do seasonal arts and crafts.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Geared for a preschool-aged child, this book counts down different shapes and colors of leaves as they fall from the trees. The collage pictures show many animals familiar to suburban nature watchers, like woodpeckers, squirrels, and chipmunks. This was one of my favorite autumn books, in part because the detailed pictures had much for a parent to discover with a child that went beyond the simple text of the book. Hunting for things and more meaning in the pictures and then discussing them is half of the fun of picture books. It also had additional information and activities in the back, giving adults quick ideas to expand the lesson.

[Evie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my new favorite children's book for fall. Beautiful illustrations. One tree is featured per double page with the double page being bordered by the bark of the tree. Children can see the bark, the leaves, and the seed or flower. An informational picture book with nice rhyming text. It made for a great preschool story time in our library.

[Jo Oehrlein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Counting book that counts down from 10 to 1. No numerals on the page -- just number words in the rhyming text and items to count.
Note that it can be a little bit confusing on counting. The items in the marked off corners of the page don't count.

For give, they have you counting the prickling cases with nuts and leaves, but ignore the ones with no leaves.
For Maple leaves, they use "three-pointed", so there are lots more than 3 leaves -- you have to notice the characteristic of the leaves.
For birch leaves, they say they drop two-by-two, so you need to notice the groups of two.

In the educational activities at the back, they don't define "toothed edges" or "lobed", which means that an adult has to supply that information for the kids to work out the answers.

The Match the Leaves exercise says to use the information in the book, but really you're matching 2 leaves that are the same shape but different colors.

The information on the uses of the different trees is cool as is the information on plant parts.

I think calling the educational pages "For Creative Minds" is a bit misleading. There's no real creative activity here.

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Checked this out from the library and want to make sure I remember it so that I can get it again (or buy it) for my daughter.

Love this one—you’re learning about different trees, the change of seasons, and how animals prepare for winter. And it is BEAUTIFULLY illustrated, and not annoying to read (not always the case). I know this is picky, but I can’t help but cringe seeing the comic sans typeface in the book, but I didn’t deduct anything from the rating based on that. Just bothers me a little, ha.

Highly recommend this one and will read it again.

[Anna Virginia]

A fun read aloud for young students to explore counting down instead of up.

Through beautiful pictures and poetry we are introduced to fall through counting. There are also lots of expertly drawn images of parts of nature that students can study and compare.

This would be a fun read aloud for young students. There are some moments in the story when the poetry doesn't flow as well as it does on other pages, but the pictures are fascinating and detail filled.

[Rose Rosetree · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightfully engaging, the author of this book (Fran Hawk) put a ton of creativity into making the abstract ideas come alive.

Clever aspects of this book include:

* The countdown from 10 to 1. Fall isn't only colorful. There's more to the season than that.

* Leaf exploration. What do different leaves look like? And which trees do they come from?

Yes, trees, as in:
* Aspen
* Beech
* Birch
* Chestnut
* Dogwood
* Linden
* Maple
* Oak
* Pine
* Sweet gum.

Animals are part of the fun for kids. This FIVE STAR read is one of my favorite combos for books for young readers: Educational and also delightful.

[Jared White · Rating 4 out of 5]

Count down to Fall and learn about leaves in this beautifully illustrated book! I'm not a fan of many concept/counting books, but I do like this one quite a bit. It counts down from 10 to 1 and each page spread features a different type of leaf. The back of the book has some additional info and educational activities.

For storytimes, I think this could work for preschool up through elementary school.

[Amelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book counts down from 10 to 1 and explores the different leaves, colors, and nature's changes during the fall season. The illustrations are great and in the back of the book there are matching games, information about the parts of trees and plants, the different kinds of leaves (birch, maple, oak) and why plants are important to animals.

[Lauren Duffy · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I liked: nice illustrations, educational, activities in the back to make lessons

What I didn’t like: forced poetry, somewhat boring

This book had so much potential and falls flat. It’s redeeming value for homeschooling parents is that you could make some good hands on lessons from this book.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book counts backwards from ten to one while teaching the reader all about Fall, and the seasonal changes as the leaves from ten different trees. Many more activities at the end of the book that will challenge the reader.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice fall picture book counting down with the different types of leaves and colors

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully illustrated autumnal countdown that leads us right into winter.

Just lovely!

[Cathy aka The Attached Mama · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely book about fall that can also teach kids to count.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful illustrations!

[Willow · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a gorgeous nature book!

[Dianne Butts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun read. Beautiful illustrations. Good for counting and learning types of trees.

[Terri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful read. Makes identifying trees fun. At the end of the book there are some great activities as well.

[Bekka · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the illustrations, but so much of the text was about leaves, which I do enjoy but there were more autumnal nature references that they could have referenced.

[Emily Carlyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story counts down fall features from 10 to 1. It has great rhymes and some great words!

[Scarlett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not outstanding, but i liked certain elements of it! For instance, the animal pictures and naming of the leaves

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 STARS

Here we "count down" to autumn as the leaves fall. First ten leaves, then nine, and so on; each page has a different tree, so we end up with ten different trees and see their leaves (or needles, in the case of the pine tree) and the type of seeds/acorns that they drop. Each page also shows a different animal. Super cute! The details are great; I love the borders and how they show the complete tree, and the leaf and seed/acorn up close. Great for learning how to identify trees. But, I can't quite give this a stellar rating because the rhyming text was rather clunky and didn't really engage me. Still, it's really the pictures and concept that matter here and they are great.

The back matter contains some activity sheets for classroom use (I thought they looked pretty boring and uninspired, but it's nice they included something, I guess).

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is amazing here are the illustrations, just beautiful with two page spreads for each species of tree depicted in the countdown. Each of the ten species has its own page with a four line rhyming text; the illustration is framed with an illustration of the tree's bark and the four corners are used to illustrate the tree's leaf both in summer and the color of it in fall, a picture of the shape of the tree, and the seed pod from the tree. Each illustration is a great representation of the whole tree. And yes we see various beautiful animals within the leaves.
This illustrator needs to do a book for adults with her easy style of tree identification, especially the bark.
Two criticisms which relate to the text, the chestnut tree is not identified in the four lines of text and the spinners from my water maple trees come down in the spring not the fall.

[Aimee]

Why are plants so important to all of us living here on Earth? This book explores the different types of trees that there are.

The illustrations in this book are very rich in color. This will draw the reader in to learn more about fall, and all the different colors that it brings. Having students bring in different leaves that they find around their neighborhood would be a great idea. The students could use this book to examine them and try to figure out which type of tree they came from. This book also brings in good questions for students to think about. Some of which are how the animals need leaves so that they can blend in, what chlorophyll is, and what is the reason that we need plants for.

[Sheila Ortega · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the design in El Conteo Regresivo del Otono. Each page has a verse about a diTfferent tree. The border around the illustration shows the texture of the tree's bark. Squares in the corners show the entire tree, a green leaf, a fall leaf, and a seed. The central illustration shows the animals that eat part of the tree. A few pages at the end of the book give some detailed information about the trees and how the animals use them. A teacher can use this book to talk about seasons or trees.

[Eva-Marie Nevarez · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very simple book with short rhymes about fall. The wording is especially pretty and the illustrations only help the story along.
I like this more than Julia and I think that she was maybe a little bored with it. She wouldn't come out and say that but I suspect.
At the end of the book a part is included that teaches children numerous things, how to distinguish certain types of leaves for example.

[Rosa Cline · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book it's beautifully illustrated with birds, leaves, trees, nature stuff...and each page has a count down like seven pine cones, six linden leaves, etc. At the back of the book is additional information you can use the book as a Science book learning-teaching additional information on the pine cones, leaves, animals etc. that is within the book. No wonder it was a Mom's Choice Awards book.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

My five-year-old son picked this book out from the library this week. He does love his number books.

Grrrr. I did not like the text at all. It was in the clunky, forced rhyme that I complain about so often. I do love books written in rhyme if the rhyme is actually poetry. I do not like books written in rhyme that lack rhythm and flow and when the rhyme curtails the word choice.

The illustrations, however, are very lovely, and are worth at least checking out this book.