Fish Counting

Readers can learn to count from one to ten with teh help of sea creatures.

PreS-These board books contain photographs of reef creatures in their underwater environment. In Colors, a close-up image of a fish along with its common name is juxtaposed against a page in the featured hue, which is identified with large white letters. In Counting, animals represent digits from 1 to 10, with the number written as both a numeral and a word. While most of the photos show groups of fish, 5 is depicted as a 5-armed starfish and 10 as a 10-legged crab, a shift that might confuse some children. Both books end with a double-page spread inviting youngsters to name the colors or count the creatures in a reef scene. Although the photos in Colors are a little brighter, the pictures in both books are sometimes murky and slightly out of focus. No information about the creatures or their environment is provided. While some youngsters might enjoy learning the interesting names of these underwater inhabitants (e.g., crescent-tail bigeye or skunk clownfish), there are many other concept books and titles about sea life that are more informative and more visually appealing.-Joy Fleishhacker, formerly at School Library Journal

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