Twenty Is Too Many

Rating:
Summary: A fun book to read and talk about
Review: Ms. Duke has tried to write a fun way to teach math. Instead what she has created is a tired and disinteresting short picture book.

I gave this book the "babysitter test" I took my favorite five year old with me to the local bookseller and tried reading this to her. She asked me to get another book before page 8. This is not lack of attention. She is known to be enthralled by Sendak or DePaulo.

I would recommend you view this book before purchasing..if you do.

Rating:
Summary: A fun book to read and talk about
Review: My 3 year old son loves books, and this one is a favorite. He loves the names of all the characters, and enjoys talking about their antics as they leave the scene one by one. This is a book that has a lot of activity, and it presents a pretty easily grasped concept of subtraction. My son isn't quite ready for math yet, but the exposure is great. I can't imagine why a child wouldn't have fun with this one.

Rating:
Summary: The best early subtraction book out there
Review: This book is the best I've found for introducing your child to subtraction without letting him know you're teaching him something. (If you have a child who thinks he knows it all or thinks school is where you learn and home is where you play, this is very important.) The book is especially good for helping a child see that you can subtract by counting back, not just by taking some away and then counting to see how many are left, which takes longer. And besides that, the illustrations are whimsical and colorful. My daughters find the pictures very endearing and like the guinea pigs' names. Having already read "One Guinea Pig Is Not Enough," they enjoyed seeing further adventures of the mischievous guinea pigs in this book.

Rating:
Summary: Twenty Guinea Pigs
Review: This is a cute book with a math lesson intertwined, but not much of a plot. We being with 20 guinea pigs on a boat, ten fall off and the math problem of (20-10) is in large type across the page, we turn the page to discover the answer of 10. We then continue to subtract one at a time until there are no more guinea pigs left. The problems are written on one 2-page spread, while the answers on the next leaving time for children to speculate and figure out the answer. The numbers are written large and clearly with the characters even interacting with them. The correct number of guinea pigs is also present and it is evident how many, and which one is being subtraction.

This book has served me well as a good introduction to subtraction in my kindergarten class. I would recommend it for that purpose and for children to peruse on their own, but it is not meant for story-time.

Why 3 stars?: The book serves its purpose well and the drawings are cute and entertaining. However, the minus and equal signs can be hard to see and the page design makes the story discontinuous.