Where’s Bear?
Emily Gravett
Macmillan Children’s Books
Bear and Hare are back in their third amusing adventure, or game actually. The adorable duo engage in a game of Hide and Seek with Bear hiding first. Unsurprisingly to readers his chosen hiding places – in front of a lamp, or a pile of books, and behind a fish tank (albeit a large one) – are a dismal failure and the roles are reversed. Bear is now the finder: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 … but where, oh where is Hare? Here perhaps?

But now Hare cannot find Bear and oh dear, he’s getting in a bit of a tizzy

until finally …

Nobody can turn a small episode into high drama with quite the consummate skill of Emily Gravett.
I do hope the publishers decide to offer it other formats: it’s perfect for beginning readers but the board book edition may well put them off.

How Many Legs?
Katja Spitzer
Flying Eye Books
Off beat illustrations of all manner of items from ice-creams to bugs and ‘mischievous monkeys’ to ‘stylish shoes’ to count, are presented in the small pages of this quirky little counting and number book. It’s divided into two distinct parts: the first introduces numerals and counting to 10 (the number being displayed on both sides of the spread);

the second provides practice in getting one to one correspondence between the number names spoken and the items being counted without the visual number symbols.

There’s plenty of potential for talking with the very young ones as well as the mathematical opportunities offered here in this mini volume, which is one of a new series from this artist and Flying Eye. I love the bold retro images and the feel of the whole thing.

SNAP! SNAP!
Cocoretto
Child’s Play
There are five animals hiding beneath the flaps of this ‘Guess the Animal’ board book, each introduced by a noisy clue and the repeated question What’s that noise?’

the answer being revealed by lifting the flap on the opposite page.

Those from just a few months can enjoy the sounds and bold, bright images, slightly older toddlers will delight in the playful scenarios and the chance to be noisy along with the various animals large and small each spread provides; and those just beginning to match the spoken word to the print on the page might try doing just that. The experience will be hugely more enjoyable than that provided by the first books of a dreary reading scheme and in addition there’s the opportunity to begin to develop prediction skills.
In similar vein is

CHOO! CHOO!
The format is the same but herein the animals are the drivers or operators of wonderfully noisy vehicles. There’s a train, a tractor, a digger, a motorbike and a fire engine. Playful, cacophonous fun aplenty.

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