'The best books, reviewed with insight and charm, but without compromise.'
- author Jackie French

Saturday 2 August 2014

Review: Counta Block

I simply backflipped over Christopher Franceschelli’s Alpha Block (see my review here), and so was utterly delighted to unwrap this brick-like follow-up—another hard cover board book for tots, this time all about numbers.

Peskimo’s truly gorgeous illustrations carry this delightful concept of a brick, I mean—book, into numerical territory, starting with one adorable squirrel staring at an acorn. ‘One acorn becomes …’ and as we flip the page, there it is in all its grandeur—a magnificent oak tree double-page spread.

For the number 2, we meet to darling snowmen, who soon become … flip the page to a double-page spread of two puddles. And so on we go, right though to ten, smiling at the charming humour and totally-kid illustrations until we get to 10. And this is where things speed up a little.

Using wonderful page-edge cut-outs, kiddles are introduced to the bigger numbers, stopping off at 10, 20, 30, etc, until we reach the truly massive—too high to even count—100. This magnanimous number is duly celebrated by a full double-barrelled page lift-out … 100 puzzle pieces of all the glorious images from the book proper.

Cleverly crafted and gorgeously conceived and illustrated, your tot will absolutely fast track it to the bookish cool set with this über board brick. A whopping five centimetres deep, they’ll be clacking back those pages and counting up a storm in no time.

Title: Counta Block
Author: Christopher Franceschelli
Illustrator: Peskimo
Publisher: Abrams, $33.95 RRP
Publication Date: 5 August 2014
Format: Hard cover
ISBN: 9781419713743
For ages: 1 - 4
Type: Picture Book