Architecture, Count

My son is a little over a year old and he really enjoys this book. We have it checked out from the library and I'm going to put it on his wish list for Christmas. He has always enjoyed looking at things to see how they work and looking at the working parts of toys and items around the house. As an adult I don't think the pictures are incredibly special, but they are photos of everyday type things shown in a way that you might not notice if you were just around town.

As an architect, I enjoy giving these books as gifts because they are different from your run of the mill children's books. I like how they use building pieces to teach about basic shapes and colors. It is not a book that highlights popular or historic architecture - its more about the components.

We love this book. It's one of our favorite baby shower gifts. We first discovered it when our son was almost 2. It was especially fun because we were living in Cambridge, MA, at the time, and all the photos are from the Boston/Cambridge area. One of my favorite memories of his early childhood is the day we were driving in North Cambridge, and he suddenly called out (seemingly randomly) from his car seat in back, "Six Ducts!" Lo and behold, there atop the Alewife "T" station were the six red ducts from the book. Another is the time I happened onto him "reading" the book to himself; he had it open to the "six ducts" page and was saying, "quack, quack." (He is a teenager now, and I wish he were still so into books. I also hope he doesn't read this review!) It was our experience with baby board books that the ones we enjoyed "mysteriously" turned into his favorites too.

I like this book because it teaches children to relate the things they are learning (ie counting) to the real world. The photographs are clear and visually interesting. This book provides a great alternative to the basic counting books. I also find it more fun to read books to my children that I also find interesting.