Number Rhymes

K-Gr 2—In this companion to Number Rhymes to Say and Play! (Frances Lincoln, 2004), Dunn has chosen rhymes that vary in complexity from simple counting rhymes ("Mosquito one, mosquito two...") to counting backwards "There were ten in the bed…") to counting by tens ("One hundred honey bees...") and doubling, ("One and one are 2,...2 and 2 are 4...."). The organizational scheme graduates from easy to most difficult. The initial introductory page explains in a rather complicated way how to crack the vocabulary code of numbers by remembering such things as "Thir means 3 so thirteen means 3 and 10." Colorful cartoonlike drawings, rendered in pen-and-ink, decorate the pages and endpapers, but many do not clarify the verses. This book lacks significant general appeal when compared to one with charm such as J. Patrick Lewis's Arithme-tickle: An Even Number of Odd Riddle-Rhymes (Harcourt, 2002).—Blair Christolon, Prince William Public Library System, Manassas, VA