Ten Crunching caterpillars (Ten Wriggly Wiggly Caterpillars - Debbie Tarbett)

Member Name: wisemind

Product:	Ten Wriggly Wiggly Caterpillars - Debbie Tarbett
Date:	06/04/09 (206 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: entertaining for little ones

Disadvantages: Pop up page not robust enough for my son

Ten wriggly wiggly caterpillars is a children's book written by Debbie Tarbett and first printed in 2004. This book is a hardback book but has thin card pages which make it more robust than the average book.

I bought this book for my son from a car boot sale for the bargain price of 30p.

This book has won a gold award in the practical preschool awards in 2004.

The cover of the book is bright and colourful it has the shapes of ten caterpillars cut out and ten small 3D plastic caterpillars showing through that you can touch and feel.

When I first read this book it reminded me of a more complex song called five little ducks.

Each page counts down one caterpillar disappearing. The illustrations on each page are bright and with pictures of different insects birds or fruit which cover two pages of the book and are very attractive and draw the eye in.

Each page describes the caterpillars' differently speedy, clever singing or brave. Each page is a different adventure which results in something happens to a caterpillar for example got tired, stayed to sing or got a tummy ache and therefore one less makes it to the next page.

Each page countdowns the caterpillar until there was one caterpillar who was sad on his own but it reads" when all of a sudden there were" and as you turn the page there is a pop up image of ten brightly coloured butterflies.

My son enjoys this story it is face paced and rhythmic. It has approximately fifteen words over each two page countdown so works well with my son who is particularly impatient to turn the page.

I am happy to read this book not only does it teach counting skills but gives chance for further discussion on the various items that overwhelm the page. While I read this story my son will often point to the large images on the pages. As he is now learning words he likes to name words and point to things for me to name for words he doesn't know.

The only thing that isn't great about this book is that although the pages are thick unfortunately my son isn't that great at caring for books and bends the butterflies so I have to keep this book out of his reach so he can look at it with me but he can't flick through it like he does his other books as he would tear the butterflies.

I would recommend this book for young children who are old enough not to wreck books but young enough to enjoy a short story.

It is currently on sale as Amazon at £5.99 although recommended retail price is £7.99

The book has a link to the printer's website www.littletigerpress.co.uk but this holds very little information.

Added: my son has ripped a butterfly out this afternoon to prove a point.

Summary: A very entertaining read for little ones