Product Description

In this charming garden of numbers, readers will be delighted by dancing flowers and crabby apples while they learn to count from one watering can to ten snails, from twenty weepy onions to fifty cherry pies, to as many as two hundred and thirty three peas! Ward Schumaker's bright palette and whimsical illustrations make "In My Garden" the perfect book for budding counters and gardeners, alike.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1987412 in Books
• Published on: 2000-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 34 pages

From Amazon.com
Whimsy and wonder abound in this horticultural counting book. Beginning readers (and counters--and gardeners!) can count from one grinning watering can to 233 plump little peas, with plenty of dancing flowers, buzzing bees, stones for stepping, and snails late for dinner in between. In the standard counting-book format, numbers one through ten are each given their own two-page spread. Numbers 20, 30, 40, and 50 follow, allowing children to stretch their minds to remember (or learn) what comes between, and the book concludes on a silly note, with number 233. The penultimate page shows every single one of the 233 peas numbered, so young readers can check their work!

Readers confronted with Ward Schumaker's clever, happy, full-page illustrations will feel an irresistible urge to kick up their heels and frolic through the garden of numbers. Witty little visual jokes, such as the six birds singing Bach and the 40 crab apples stomping their feet and grimacing at each other, will delight readers young and old. Who knew learning to count could be this much fun? Schumaker has charmed readers with several other picture books, including Sing a Song of Circus. (Ages 3 to 6) --Emilie Coulter

From Publishers Weekly
In this playful enumeration of a garden patch, Schumaker (Sing a Song of Circus) produces another visually delicious work. Using his signature style of pure colors applied to delicate, swooping black outlines, he creates a series of full-bleed, double-page spreads that exude an engaging, off-kilter elegance. One stunner depicts nine doily-like butterflies as a bouquet of rose, peach and chestnut against a backdrop of mint and teal. The garden brims with vivid personalities as well: "four shady trees" sport sunglasses, seven bluebirds sing Bach and 40 red-and-green "crabby" apples are clearly spoiling for a fight. After counting from one gardening can to 10 snails "late for dinner" and on from 20 to 50 (in large, colorful numerals coupled with the name of each), Schumaker ends with the appealingly curious number of 233 peas. The following spread shows the watering can pointing out the peas, which are tagged from one to 233. This is one garden kids can count on. Ages 4-8. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
PreSchool-K-"In my garden I have 1 one watering can-Two pots 2 for planting-" and so on. The numbers go from 1 to 10, then 20, 30, 40, 50, and at last "233 two-hundred thirty-three plump little peas!" These peas are scattered all over the double-page spread. The next spread shows the same formation of peas, each one bearing a number, and the text reads, "Count them yourself!" This is great for young literalists who do indeed care to count 233 peas; it is also an opportunity to see each number, and to see the multitude that 233 really is. The whimsical cartoons with soft, flat colors and outlined in black were rendered in Adobe Photoshop. The objects to be counted all have faces (20 weeping onions) and the 7 birds are singing from sheet music by Bach. This is a clever, enjoyable addition to the rich variety of counting books available.
Carolyn Jenks, First Parish Unitarian Church, Portland, ME
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.