Delphine Chedru

This book teaches pre-schoolers how to describe size simply by having them ask the question ‘Who’s the biggest?’ to the pair of objects on every spread. The fun is in the reply; using evocative verbs, the book helps to conjure up some of the character of the object speaking: ‘“I am!” trumpets the elephant’, or “I am!” warns the hammer to the nail. Parents and guardians reading the book to toddlers will inevitably be drawn into the game, and will enjoy making their replies as expressive as possible. The skills being taught are basic mathematics, which Chedru turns into a fun and creative game that children will love playing. By requiring the reader to actively ask the question ‘Who’s the biggest?’ on every page, the book enourages children to apply an enquiring mindset to the things they encounter.

How Many Kisses? begins by inviting the reader to give one kiss to the cat, two kisses to the dogs, three kisses to the flowers and so on, following a classic counting technique until readers reach the number ten. The book then takes wild jumps up to seventeen, sixty-four, 823, and finally ‘millions’, prompting a riotous explosion of kisses from the reader. By encouraging the child to interact physically with the book, each reading becomes like a game that celebrates all the things in a child’s life that they love, while familiarizing them with numbers and counting. The unique twist in the counting narrative gives physical expression to numbers too large for younger children to quantify, while inspiring an enjoyment of counting.