About this item
Highlights
- A simple, beautiful introduction to math for the youngest readersEvery child is a natural mathematician, according to Mitsumasa Anno.
- 4-8 Years
- 16.7" x 14.7" Paperback
- 32 Pages
- Juvenile Nonfiction, Concepts
Description
About the Book
A counting book depicting the growth in a village and surrounding countryside during twelve months.Book Synopsis
A simple, beautiful introduction to math for the youngest readers
Every child is a natural mathematician, according to Mitsumasa Anno. Children are constantly comparing and classifying things and events they observe around them. As they try to bring sense and order into what they observe, they are actually performing basic mathematical feats.
With Anno's Counting Book, the creator of the brilliantly inventive Anno's Alphabet invites young readers on another stimulating adventure of the imagination--this time into the world of numbers and counting. This big book version is the right size for sharing in a classroom.
Gentle watercolor pictures show a landscape changing through the various times of day and the turning seasons, months and years, and the activities of the people and animals who come to live there. But the seemingly simple plan of the book is deceptive: look more carefully and you will see one-to-one correspondences; groups and sets; scales and tabulations; changes over time periods; and many other mathematical relationships as they occur in natural, everyday living. The reader is subtly led to see and understand the real meaning of numbers.
Look at this book and look again. Each time you do so, you will find another application of a natural mathematical concept that you had not noticed before.
From the Back Cover
First there is an empty field. The it is January, the first month of the year. All alone in the snow stands 1 yellow house. In front, 1 child builds a snowman. Behind the house is 1 tree and 1 black cow. Now, five months later, it is June. There are 6 buildings in the field, 6 children playing, and 6 adults working. One adult tends 6 ducks. Another drives a trains with 6 cars. From 1 to 12, through the months of the year, the town grows. More houses and trees and animals and people can be seen until December arrives with all it's magic.
Review Quotes
"One of the few truly intelligent counting books ever produced-and a work of art besides. Anno's village is alive in his lovely watercolor paintings, and every child will be subtly, irresistibly pulled in, counting trees and trucks, flowers and fish, ducks and diapers." -- New York Times
"An excellent introduction to number systems and a beautiful wordless picture book as well. A counting book that's numero uno. -- School Library Journal
"Handsomely designed and produced, with graceful, leafy borders, carefully rendered pictures, and, facing them, woodgrain upper-case letters that seem to have been lovingly hand-carved, this looks like the beautiful sort of book that wins prizes for graphic excellence. And so it is." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)