One night on the farm everything is topsy-turvy and the moon will only smile when things are put right. It’s time for him to light the stars, one by one. This deeply satisfying counting story twinkles with warmth and ingenuity. Interactive and great fun, this book combines die-cut pages and peek-through holes.

Review A fun, ‘see-through’ cut-out moon segment on the cover hints there is something different about this story, billed as ‘A bedtime counting book’. A friendly moon guides us through the night by lighting stars, signalling to the farm life that it’s time to go to sleep. Familiar farm animals are alternated with nocturnal creatures, which of course, are ‘getting up’ for the night. Predictability is further curtailed as Horacek employs surprising pictorial devices which ‘reveal’ each one of an eventual ten stars when the pages are turned.

Printed on heavy, quality laminated paper stock, this novel book will be safe in younger hands, despite having small star shapes cut out from most pages. Nearly square, the book is also a good practical size for group reading in a classroom or library setting. Every spread has a full-bleed, and the absence of a white border means that stars and animals appear illuminated against complementary watercolour washes, enabling them to be easily seen and counted from a distance. However, the black text (around 250 words), set against rich backgrounds on some pages, won’t be as easily viewed. In this case, the images mirror words anyway, so even older children will likely be engaged in counting the increasing number of creatures and brilliantly coloured stars rather than wanting to read along.

Horacek’s wax-resist artwork is very accessible; children may have created wax-resist images themselves before, or this book could even act as a ‘starter’ for an art session. Even very young children will get pleasure from drawing a woolly sheep with white crayon, and then painting with dye or food-colouring over the top to make the white crayon sheep ‘stand out’ from the white paper.

Whether told as a quiet bedtime story, or read to educate young learners, this beautifully produced book sets itself apart from many of the ‘counting’ books available today and I would anticipate requests for repeat reads.

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2008-09-28