Ants at the picnic Counting by tens

PreS-Gr 2-These four books all tell their stories through the structure of counting by 10, and they do so in various ways. Ten ants carry off picnic food, 10 woodpeckers each have 10 tail feathers and the number of feathers decreases by 10 as each bird flies away, a young bear gives away 10-petaled flowers to folks in his community, and 10 toes join the fun at the beach. Throughout the books, the featured numbers are hidden in the collage-style illustrations and are shown through a grid with a matching number of dots. Although there is certainly a need for easy books to use when teaching the times tables, there is no need for four such similar ones, and none of these books is outstanding. The texts are choppy, the illustrations are uneven, and the elements seem disjointed. Toasty Toes and Tail Feather Fun are the best of this bunch, but there are better choices for math picture books, such as Stuart J. Murphy's "MathStart" series (HarperCollins).-Genevieve Gallagher, Murray Elementary School, Charlottesville, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.