One Family by George Shannon (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: One Family by George Shannon Deborah Stevenson, Editor Shannon, George One Family; illus. by Blanca Gómez. Foster/Farrar, 2015 26p ISBN 978-0-374-30003-6 $17.99 R 4-6 yrs An author gifted at making the familiar fresh (as in White Is for Blueberry, BCCB 5/05), Shannon here turns his hand to the classic counting book, with a clever and stealthily simple text that plays collective nouns against countable individual nouns. The concept of one seems familiar enough, but the trickiness becomes apparent with two: “One is two./ One pair of shoes. One team of horses./ One family.” The book works its way up to ten, identifying as it goes a multitude of thought-provoking collectives (“One bunch of bananas”; “One flock of birds”; “One flight of stairs”) and ending each small verse with “One family”; a closing (“One earth. [End Page 564] One world./ One family”) takes the collective larger and makes it a warmhearted statement. The text is focused and precise, and the examples are often friendly (“One pile of pups”) and sometimes rhyming (“One house of bears. One bowl of pears”), making for a cozy readaloud that trips agreeably off the tongue. The round-headed Fisher-Price style of Gomez’s figures and the slightly shaded retro tones of teal, rust, forest green, and peach give the digital art a gently old-fashioned flavor, but the thoroughly multicultural cast is highly contemporary. There’s an entertaining seek-and-find element to the cited objects, perfect for sharp young eyes, and a closing spread identifies all the countable objects spread by spread. Complicate your counting curricula in the nicest possible way with this. Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois