My 3 year old loves books with counting. So when I saw the book Count the Monkeys at our library, I decided to check it out for her. It turns out that this is a book that my 3 year old and 7 year old both love to read. That is always a win-win situation.
The Goodreads summary is pretty spot on – “Kids will giggle as they count all the animals that have frightened the monkeys off the pages. Full of fun reader interactions and keeps readers guessing until the very last page! Matching Mac Barnett’s brilliant wit are Kevin Cornell’s luminous illustrations, which will have young readers begging to count the monkeys all over again.”
The joy in this book is that while you think you are going to get to county monkeys, you really get to count everything else. First it’s the king cobra who has scared off all of the monkeys. The reader is told to “turn the page very slowly, very carefully so he doesn’t notice us.” It continues in this vein as each page gives you something to count, but not the monkeys you were looking for. Each page has something for the children to do – roar at grizzly bears, thank the nice beekeepers who shoo off the swarms of bees, high five the lumberjacks. But then you finally get rid of all of the intruders and there are no pages left!
Interactive books are great fun for kids and make read-aloud time even more special and engaging. My 7 year old mentioned that they read this book in her class and all of her friends loved it as well. If you are looking for a good story-time read, this one is top notch.
Nice that BOTH of them like it!
I’m impressed by your kids’ taste in picture books. Consistently they are the best books that I know, with a few gems I had not yet discovered sprinkled in.
it’s more my taste in picture books 🙂 They are pretty open to new things and I love finding new books at the library. We don’t like everything we bring home, but we like a lot. We also have some favorites on the bookshelves that either I’ve purchased or we have received as gifts. If you hadn’t noticed, I have a bit of an addiction.
Me too! But there are much worse addictions. 🙂