Puppy playtime by Celeste Walters

Ill. by Adele Jaunn. Little Hare, 2013. ISBN 9781742977164.
(Age: 3+) Recommended. Picture book, Dogs, Counting book. A counting book with a slight variation from most, with the numbers being counted form one to ten and then back to one, will help younger children become acquainted with counting numbers one to ten with ease. The pictures of the playful puppies dotting every page will make the task of counting them to align the picture with the number presented an easy task for the reader.
The premise of the bitzer trying to find his bone in the park is a task younger children can easily follow, enticing them to count the dogs as well as seek out the bone as they read. In rhyming lines too, the readers will be encouraged to predict what the next word will be that rhymes with the last word on the previous line.
Using watercolours, Adele Jaunn creates a soft rendering of the playful dogs, leaping, scratching, whining, frisking and howling across the pages.
Each dog has different characteristics and verbs accrue to each separate dog, while at the end of the story the bone is found, posing a question for the readers to start reading and looking all over again. And I'm sure they will all be happy to do this.
Adele Jaunn has recently illustrated Baby Bilby's question and Bernard's plane trip (as well as being the author).
In a classroom or at home, this lovely book will not only encourage children to count, and watch for the different characteristics of dogs, especially when the lines contain many words signifying the different breeds of dog, and to search for clues hidden in the illustrations.
Fran Knight