Counting Colors

Counting Colors by Roger Priddy

If you're ever looking for a gift to give to someone under 1, this is it.  Counting Colors:  Search for the hidden objects and learn your colors and numbers (or Seek & Find in the newer version) is a book that your child can grow with.  They say it's for ages 2 and up  -- but I think it's a great book for babies as well.  I have a 9-month old who loves it.

Each two-page spread is dedicated to one color, and there is absolutely no question at all what the color is.  The text, which is written in the border around the pages, challenges children to find different objects scattered along the pages.  (For example, 1 squawking parrot, 2 roses, 3 airplanes)  Then against a white background are amazingly vivid photos of hearts, tomatoes, shoes, ladybugs, etc of all sizes.  Look at the cover above -- wow!

So you can use the book multiple ways:
1)  teach colors
2)  name objects
3)  teach numbers and counting
4)  search-n-find

A winner, all the way around.  This is published by Priddy Books, and I haven't seen a book by them that I don't like!  They are aces for their clear, colorful photos. 

Other great Priddy Books (my daughters love these):

• My Big Truck Book: I desperately needed help to teach my daughter the names of construction trucks!
• Animals, Colors, First Words, Trucks:  four separate books, and wow!!
  
• Happy Baby Words:  This has a little bit of everything (colors, body parts, toys, food, clothing, etc)
• Baby Mates:  In the Bath  -- This was my older daughter's first bath book.  She LOVED it and now it's a favorite of my younger daughter as well.   There is a rubber duck attached to this -- lots of fun!
• Baby Touch & Feel Puppy Love:  Such soft cuddly puppies!  I'm not a dog person and I love it!
  

Other great books that teach colors:

• Planting a Rainbow by Lois Elhert also teaches about flowers and will inspire you to start a garden
• My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss compares colors to emotions
• What Color is Your Underwear by Sam Lloyd is a funny lift-the-flap book that teachers colors and the importance of underwear!
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. and The Very Hungry Caterpillar, both illustrated by Eric Carle.
• The M&M's Brand Counting Book by Barbara Barbieri McGrath is a FUN AND YUMMY way to teach colors and counting!  Make sure you have a pack of M&M's ready when you read this book. My homeschooled daughter says, "mom, let's do math!" with a big smile on her face when she pulls this book out.   

Learn More:

• Priddy Books on the web!
  

• Fun ideas for teaching colors to little ones! 

• Smart Snacks Rainbow Color Cones:  This is the most awesome toy!  We bought it when my oldest daughter was 2.  It's basically an ice cream cone with removable scoops of ice cream that can be attached to it.  For example:  (Mom) Please may I have a vanilla / chocolate / strawberry triple-scooper?  (Daughter) Coming right up!  And she hands me the cone with a scoop of white, brown, and pink ice cream on it.  Teach colors and their corresponding flavors.  It's still a favorite toy and she's almost 5 years old now.   

• Uno:  Remember playing this game as a kid?  It's perfect for teaching both colors and numbers.  We play this regularly at my house.  While my daughter still needs to learn how to hold a deck of cards... she also needs to learn how to not be a sore loser.   Fun for the whole family -- you can even get big brother/sister to play!
  

Tumtum & Nutmeg

Tumtum & Nutmeg:  Adventures Beyond Nutmouse Hall by Emily Bearn, illustrated by Nick Price

My daughter is in preschool and is crazy about books and movies where animals talk.  She is especially fond of rodents (by definition a rodent is a mammal whose incisors do not stop growing), and particularly mice.  While I was looking for a book by Judy Blume at the library, my eyes were immediately attracted to a book by another "B" author, Emily Bearn, which on the thick spine had a drawing of two mice in clothing!  I've been looking for a chapter book to read to my daughter, and this one, which is written at the 2nd-4th grader reading level, turned out to be perfect!

Mr. and Mrs. Nutmouse live in the broom cupboard of Rose Cottage in Nutmouse Hall.  They enjoy the quiet life in their mansion.  Despite the fact that there is a banquet room, billiard room, and a ballroom -- 36 rooms in all -- Mr. Nutmouse prefers to spend the evening reading with his feet up by the fireplace and Mrs. Nutmouse cooking or sewing.  Tumtum (as Mr. Nutmouse is called because he has a bit of a tummy) and Nutmeg (called so because her fur is that color) would probably have lived out their days quietly.  However, they occasionally scamper into Rose Cottage, and find that the family there is not doing well at all.  The widower Mr. Mildew is such an absent-minded inventor that his house is in total disarray.  And so Nutmeg's maternal instincts kick in, and she and Tumtum begin to watch over the children, Lucy and Arthur.  They never dreamed that so many adventures would come to them because of this!

Three books are contained in this volume.  In the first, "Tumtum & Nutmeg", the Nutmouses secretly begin to tidy up the house, darn holes in socks, and occasionally rest in Lucy's dollhouse.  The children find traces of it being inhabited, and a letter-writing relationship between Nutmeg and the children is established in which she calls herself "a fairy of sorts".  When evil Aunt Ivy comes to visit, the Nutmouse family faces extermination, and so General Marchmouse rallies the troops and they hasten her departure from Rose Cottage, as she was making the children miserable as well.  The method they use to do so... well, without giving the story away, let me just say that it had my husband and daughter busting a gut from laughing so much!

In "The Great Escape", General Marchmouse, who is retired and longing for adventure, comes to visit the Nutmouses.  Arthur and Lucy's toys are too much for him to resist, and he goes from creating mock battles in the attic with toy soldiers to being held prisoner in a cage with naked gerbils at school!!  And finally, "The Pirates' Treasure" finds our dear Nutmouses secretly joining the children on a camping trip as Nutmeg is worried about them.  Then General Marchmouse shows up -- everyone roll your eyes, because you know an unwanted adventure is about to begin -- and the mice find themselves stealing Arthur's toy boat, crashing it into the newly named Marchmouse Island, and using their wits (and some help from the children) to escape from the pirate Rats!

As soon as we finished the book (503 pages in all), my daughter wanted me to immediately start reading it again.  There were some parts in the book that were very intense for her.  She is a VERY sensitive 4-year old, and the threat of death was in each story. Consequently we read for a long time some nights, so she wouldn't go to bed upset. But if your child is in the publisher's recommended age range, no worries.  My husband enjoyed listening to it as well, cozying up on the couch with us each evening.  He even mentioned that he was impressed with some of the vocabulary used in it as well.

The illustrations in the book are just lovely in black and white and add a rustic feel to this English import.  As for myself, I'm not a fan of the talking-animal genre... but it won me over as well!  I'm going to add this one to our home library.

Other chapter books about mice you might enjoy:   

• The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo
• Stuart Little by E.B. White (one of my husband's childhood favorites)
• The Ralph Mouse Collection:  The Mouse and the Motorcyle, Runaway Ralph and Ralph S. Mouse by Beverly Cleary
• Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin by His Good Mouse Amos by Robert Lawson
• Library Mouse by Daniel Kirk (this one is a picture book but it's great!)
  

Learn More:

•  Tumtum & Nutmeg Official Website:  Learn more about the world of Tumtum & Nutmeg.  Visit the gallery to see illustrations from the book.  Check out the chapter sampler read a bit of the book online.  Nutmeg shares her favorite recipes with you, and there are some fun pages to print as well.
  

• What You Should Know About Selecting a Pet Rodent by the American Veterinary Medical Association -- because they will ask about a pet mouse after reading this book 
  

• Found:  A New Rodent!  A Time for Kids article
  

• Kid's Corner of the American Fancy Rat and Mouse Association has a kid's care guide for mice and rats, as well as printable coloring pages, puzzles/games (wordsearch, connect the dots, crossword, mazes, etc), and a paper doll rat family.
  

• Calico Critters:  These are ADORABLE little figures!  They have two mice families, the Norwood Mouse Family (pictured) and the Milky Mouse Family, and they can live in Cloverleaf Manor (among other fashionable toy houses).  The furniture they come with -- wow -- it's so cute!  There are all sorts of accessories that I am sure Nutmeg would use in her kitchen.  You could totally pretend you've got your own Nutmouse family!!  Of course, there are also squirrel, bunnies, chipmunks, etc etc -- but we ARE reading a book about mice!  Good for hours and hours of fun!  (I threw a few of these items into my store -- there are a TON more at Amazon!)