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Chipper Kids: Counting in the Crazy Garden by Margarette Burnette, illustrated by Brooke Henson

Reading level: Ages 3-7
Library Binding: 32 pages
Publisher: Jenprint Publications (March 28, 2008)

If you have trouble getting your little ones to eat their vegetables, give this book a try. After reading about "jiggly, wiggly, wobbly worm cobbler" and "hairy, scary spider cookies," broccoli will sound delicious.

Arnold Chipper, a young bear, enjoys making "food" in his garden, but it's not edible at all. His siblings, Maria and Albert, are appalled by his gross (but creative) concoctions, but when Arnold begins to eat a handful of seeds, Maria shows her brothers how to plant them. Soon Albert is able to make healthy and delicious meals for his family.

A book suited for preschool-aged children, Counting in the Crazy Garden teaches numbers and counting from one to ten through Arnold's dishes. For example, he makes "one jiggly, wiggly, worm cobbler," "two tall tubs of tumbleweed soup," and so on. To make the connection between numerals and the spelled-out words, when Arnold presents his dishes, the numeral in red is in the upper corner of the page and the spelled out word, also in red, is in the text. There's even a little lesson on how to plant seeds and grow food.

The illustrations themselves are very simple and will appeal mostly to young children. While older children may enjoy the story, they may think the pictures are too "baby like." However, the story itself is engaging and will make children laugh and also turn their noses up at the yucky foods. I imagine them saying, "ewwwwwwwww" and giggling as they read the story.

A fun take on traditional counting books, this is a nice choice for parents who are helping their children learn to count and recognize numbers. I also think it would make a good board book.

I'm always sobbing and crying over the dearth of quality children's graphic novels out there in the American stratosphere. Not to say there aren't some nice ones. I'd just like to see a whole heckuva lot more. Now for a while I was confused and thought that the GN series Flight was intended for kids. This turned out not to be the case, but it has led to a spinoff for the entlings called Flight Explorer.

Kazu Kibuishi: I had been hearing a lot of librarians and booksellers talk about how much they wanted good comics for younger readers, and I saw how there was so little of it out there with the exception of Jeff Smith’s Bone. Flight always contained a high percentage of material that would be perfect for young readers, but the more mature content often steered parents and librarians away from sharing the books with kids…