What's in the Fridge? by Gaby Goldsack and Jo Moon

What's in the Fridge? by Gaby Goldsack and Jo Moon
Buy What's in the Fridge? by Gaby Goldsack and Jo Moon at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: For Sharing
Reviewer: Jill Murphy
Summary: A fun play and learn book with press-out pieces that teaches the numbers one to eight. One to ten would have been nice, but the book is friendly, humorous and effective.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 10	Date: July 2008
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Childrens Books
ISBN: 1847383912
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It's quite difficult to make a counting book interesting - to an adult. Children, though, don't really mind what twist a counting book takes. So long as they're counting, and so long as what they're counting is either recognisable or humorous, they're happy. So the best counting books - which, after all, are really no more than a sequence of pages with different numbers of objects on them - combine recognisable objects and humour.

What's in the Fridge? does this pretty well. It's what they like to call an interactive board book. This means that there are pieces which the child needs to fit into holes on the pages. So, not only are they counting, they're sorting and matching also.

Hannah is hungry. What's in the fridge for her to eat? There's 1 shiny apple, 2 strawberry yoghurts, 3 slices of cheese, 4 sticks of celery, 5 shiny plums, 6 chunks of chocolate, and... wait for it... 7 wiggly worms and 8 squashed flies! Hannah eats different snacks - a cheese and celery sandwich for instance - and shares them with different family members. But when she gets to the wiggly worms and squashed flies and discovers they're Dad's fishing bait, she doesn't feel so hungry any more.

So there's counting, matching, sorting and a joke. It's exactly what you want. The press-out pieces are solid and will withstand multiple sessions. The illustrations are bright and breezy, and although not particularly original or striking, are clear and jolly. The text is straightforward and rhythmic and very easy to read aloud, with a few opportunities for exaggerated dramatic stress - especially leading up to greedy Hannah's eventual downfall with the worms and flies. "Yuck!" cried Hannah. "I'm not hungry any more!"

It would have been nice to see numbers up to ten rather than eight, but this is a hardy and fun little counting book combining several skill sets and including an always welcome dollop of humour. There's another in the series, called Are the Clothes Clean? which teaches colours and items of clothing in a similarly effective and humorous way.

My thanks to the nice people at Simon & Schuster for sending the book.

You could also look at The Selfish Crocodile Counting Book by Faustin Charles and Michael Terry.

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You can read more book reviews or buy What's in the Fridge? by Gaby Goldsack and Jo Moon at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.

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