Grandma Went to Market: A Round-The-World Counting Rhyme

A grandmother goes shopping around the world, in such exotic places as Instanbul, Thailand, and Mexico, taking readers on an educational adventure that teaches basic counting skills and offers a first look at geography and cultural diversity.

PreSchool-Grade 2?In this rhyming counting book, Grandma travels from country to country on her magic carpet, which becomes laden with an ever-increasing number of souvenirs. At the end of her adventures, she returns home to England where she procures a black pony for the unseen narrator. The rather banal verse doesn't always work ("trolls-dolls," "Mexico-yellow"). Lodge depicts characteristic landscapes or architecture in brightly colored gouache illustrations stretching across a page and a third. Varying perspectives seem to invite readers along as the carpet streaks across the sky carrying its colorful cargo. Although the presence of an airplane indicates a modern-day adventure, the people the woman meets dress in traditional garb. While the purchased objects appear within each illustration, usually on the cluttered carpet, they are also depicted separately along with the text on white space on the left, facilitating counting. A map at the beginning and end of the book numbers and traces the stops on this gadaboutgranny's world tour. With so many attractive counting books and engaging stories about nonstereotypical grandmothers available, this is one title you can let fly by.?Marianne Saccardi, Norwalk Community-Technical College, CT
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Debut author Blackstone's lighthearted text and Lodge's (The Half-Mile Hat) cheerful art make a pleasant pairing in this British counting book as both follow Grandma on a whistle-stop, world-wide shopping excursion. The ever-smiling woman's mode of transport is a flying carpet?her first purchase, made in Istanbul. From there she travels to Thailand, where she buys two Siamese temple cats; in Mexico she picks up three "fierce and funny" masks; and so on, until her final purchase: "But best of all, she came back home/ down Honeysuckle Lane,/ where she bought me a black pony/ with ten ribbons in his mane." The exotic locations lend themselves to fetching scenery?rendered by Lodge in vibrant hues and with ample humor?and the rhythm and rhyme of Blackstone's sing-song verse are engaging if uneven. Kids beginning to count can busy themselves adding up Grandma's accumulated treasures, all colorfully and tidily displayed on a concluding four-page fold-out. Ages 2-6.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Subtitled ``A Round-the-World Counting Rhyme,'' Blackstone's first book opens with the purchase of a flying Turkish carpet that helps transform Grandma into an international shopper. With this unique form of transportation, Grandma buzzes off on a crisscross flight pattern (shown on the endpapers) to collect mementos from many lands. She purchases two cats in Thailand, three masks in Mexico, and four paper lanterns in China. When Grandma concludes her trip by buying ten ribbons for the mane of a pony, it takes a foldout page to exhibit all the things she's acquired. Although this is the realm of fairy tales, some stereotypes distract, e.g., the Swiss are clad in liederhosen and nesting matrioshka dolls represent Russia. Otherwise, the illustrations, bright with pink, yellow, and lavender, are clear enough to distinguish a kite from a boomerang, cluttered enough to make counting the objects into a guessing game. If the verse lacks poetic acrobatics, it is aerodynamic enough to keep the book, and Grandma's escapades, in flight. (Picture book. 2-6) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.