What in the World?
Numbers in Nature
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Discover nature by the numbers in this gorgeous, innovative counting book.
The natural world is full of sets of numbers: from birds’ wings in twos and clover leaves in threes to deer hooves in fours and octopus arms in eights. This book uses playful rhyming text to explore these numerical sets in vibrant detail, ending with the stars in the sky—a number set too big to count!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this calm counting book, Day (A Is for Alliguitar) numbers elements in nature: "What in the world comes one by one?/ A nose. A mouth. The moon. The sun." Day's rhyming text follows this formula from one to 10, detailing things that come "two by two" (birds' wings) and "in threes" (clover leaves and bees' segmented bodies). For "eight by eight," Day names "Octopus limbs that undulate," and in case anyone thinks first of spiders' legs, an author's note suggests each reader "look for a numerical set in the world around you." (Nine is a tough one, and the nine-spined stickleback fish fills the bill.) Cyrus (The Voyage of Turtle Rex) pictures earth, water, and sky in serigraph-style digital art with limpid backdrops that resemble watercolor wash. His imagery including a spread of a child dipping his toes in a tide pool where sea stars congregate evokes pristine places in nature, even if his method gives the settings and creatures a curiously plasticky smoothness. Pleasant and diverting, this numerical list may well encourage readers to notice patterns in natural phenomena. Ages 4 8.