View source for My First Mr Men 123 by Roger Hargreaves

{{infobox2
|title=My First Mr Men 123
|author=Roger Hargreaves
|reviewer= Zoe Morris
|genre=For Sharing
|summary= A lovely, straight forward counting book featuring some familiar faces.
|rating=5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=16
|publisher= Egmont 
|date=February 2016
|isbn= 978-1405281737
|website= http://mrmen.com/
|video=
|aznuk=1405281731
|aznus=1405281731
|cover=1405281731
}}

As first books go, board books are good because they withstand a bit of biting, a bit of dribbling, a bit of roughness induced by not quite there yet hand-eye coordination. And as topics go, counting is great when you're trying to teach the skill and just need repetition. Plus it doesn't require the focus of attention that a proper story might. So a board book for counting? Perfect.

It's all Mr Men (maybe Little Misses don't need help learning to count?) and there's nothing fancy about it. We count from 1 to 10, using digits and the number words. ''One hat'' for Mr Tickle. ''Two shoes'' for Mr Noisy and so on. A well spent (or miss-spent?) childhood means I know the names, although they aren't shared in this book, and there isn't a summary list on the back cover as is the case with some of the paperbacks. The Boy picked this book up and that was the first thing he noted, but it must be more than 30 years since he last read a Mr Men book and his memory is going with age, bless. If you ''do'' know the cast, you'll see that they've tried to match the Mr Men to appropriate pictures. So we have Mr Strong eating ''eight eggs'' for example. He has to keep up his strength, after all. And Mr Lazy is, well lazing around, snoozing on the grass while he holds on to ''six balloons''.

There's not a lot more to say about this book, except it's very well done and a lovely introduction to the series and to the characters. The pages are super-sturdy so they can lob it around the room and it won't be too much worse for wear. The colours are bright and the illustrations are simple, stocky, not too distracting or intricate. I really liked it, and the more I looked through it, the more things I found to like, which makes it a clear winner in my eyes.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending us a copy to review. [[Mr Nobody (Mr Men and Little Misses) by Roger Hargreaves|Mr Nobody]] takes you straight into the Mr Men world if you've not visited for a while, but if it's more ways of counting you need, [[The Selfish Crocodile Counting Book by Faustin Charles and Michael Terry]] also gets a thumbs up.

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