Book: 1-2-3 Peas

Genre: Picture Book

Author(s): Keith Baker

Illustrator(s): Keith Baker

Publisher: Beach Lane Books

Release Date: 07/24/2012

Pages: 40

Reading Level: 3-7

Read Aloud: 3

Read Alone: 3

Other Choices: One Too Many: A Seek and Find Counting Book, 10 Little Monsters: A Counting Book, Night Time Numbers: A Scary Counting Book

Synopsis: Super-appealing counting book with 100 cute peas in action.

Common Sense Rates It:

Parents need to know
Parents need to know that 1-2-3 Peas is a fun counting book that will help little kids learn their numbers, 1 to 20, and how to count by 10s to 100. Preschoolers might not get the counting by 10s part, but they'll have fun watching all the busy activity of the 100 busy peas, who laugh, dance, race, build, drive, fly, and bike around, over, under, and through the giant, colorful numerals.

• Families can talk about counting. Why do we need to learn to count? How do numbers help us when we're doing things?
• How does the author of 1-2-3 Peas use art to teach readers about numbers?
• What's your favorite scene in the book? How do you like the one where the peas are wearing hardhats and building the number 10 with hammer and nails?

What's the story?
1-2-3 PEAS is both a sequel and a companion to Keith Baker's 2012 picture book, the bestselling LMNO Peas, which spotlights the alphabet. Here the loveable peas are back, and the focus is on numbers. Baker presents big, almost full-page-size numerals from 1 to 20, with adorable, active, tiny peas doing all manner of busy things around them -- fishing, boating, painting, traveling, etc. -- then teaches readers how to count by 10s, as the peas continue their nonstop activities on and around giant numerals. "Thirty peas honking -- beep, beep, beep! Forty peas napping -- sleep, sleep, sleep!" They go all the way up to "One hundred peas counting, hap-pea as can be ..."

Is it any good?
This bright, colorful counting book is sure to be a hit with little ones, who will be captivated by the perpetual pea motion around the giant numbers. It's like a Richard Scarry book in that way: There's lots to look at in every scene, as peas go this way and that in all sorts of vehhicles. Preschoolers may not grasp the counting by 10s thing, but they'll have fun seeing the antic peas zoom around on their tiny pea legs and in their pea-size vehicles.