Counting Lions
Katie Cotton and Stephen Walton
Frances Lincoln Children’s Books
Right from the amazing cover image I was blown away by this one. What strikes you first about this large format book is the stunning, incredibly life-like charcoal drawings of the ten animal species portrayed, so accurate and detailed are they that at first glance one could almost think they’re photos.
Starting with One lion and finishing with Ten zebras …

this is of course a counting book but it’s so much more. Both text and pictures radiate a sense of awe and wonder at the magnificence of the natural world.
Katie Cotton’s poetic descriptions capture verbally the creatures’ physicality and what it might be like for each of the animals in the wild at particular times in their lives so ‘Two gorillas / breathe the same breath./ The child was born a tiny, two-kilo thing of hair and bone and not much else, / so the other keeps him close./ For two or three years, they clasp each other,/ one creature, while he grows and grows and grows./ Later, as he climbs the trees alone,/ he may forget they were once/ two together./ Two gorillas.’

Many of the animals portrayed are threatened species:

Some of the descriptions themselves mention the animal’s endangeredness, for instance “Does she know they are too few?/ What future is there for/ these four fighters?/ Four tigers.’
In ‘About the animals’ notes at the end of the book, Virginia McKenna provides additional information about each animal featured including its conservation status.

Readers also get right close up to the animals in:

actual size
Steve Jenkins
Frances Lincoln Children’s Books
Eighteen creatures great and small feature in this engaging book that introduces readers to a wide variety of fauna from insects to mammals although in some instances Steve Jenkins shows only a part of the animal in his layered collage style illustrations. Alongside each of these is a descriptive sentence giving additional facts such as body height and weight.
Eyes figure quite prominently in several of the spreads and in one instance virtually all we get is an enormous squid eye 30cm across staring up from the page;

but we also get quite close up to that of the Alaskan Brown Bear, the largest bird – an ostrich, and one belonging to the salt water crocodile. Here however, thanks to a fold out, our view is expanded to take in its awesome jaws.

In a spread where we are shown a gorilla hand and that of the pygmy mouse lemur one’s instinct is to hold one’s own hand up against the former (children will want to do likewise) and to cover completely (if you’re an adult) the latter.

If you missed out on the original hardcover version, get hold of this new paperback edition for your primary classroom or school library.

Use your local bookshop