The Great Divide

K-Gr 5—On each spread of this clever picture book, a rhyming verse introduces the collective noun for a particular type of animal and then asks readers to determine how many creatures would be in each "bale," "mob," etc., if the group were divided into smaller numbers. For example: "Sixteen shiny river toads,/in a sunny spot,/gather 'round four puddles./How many in each knot?" Hunter's colorful illustrations offer clues to the groupings, for the most part, though on a few pages the divisions are not clear enough to help young readers understand the concept. The book covers a wide variety of animals, from a charm of hummingbirds to a crash of rhinos. Back matter offers more activities relating to multiplication, division, and collective nouns, along with a mapping activity that would be highly engaging if the pictures of the animals on the map, needed to answer the questions, were large enough to see. Overall, though, this is a solid resource for math, science, and language-arts lessons.—Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Carroll County Public Library, MD