Children's Book Review: You Can't Count On Dinosaurs

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This week’s book review is for You Can’t Count on Dinosaurs: An Almost Counting Book by Philip Ardagh and Elissa Elwick. It was published by Walker Books and it can be purchased on Amazon*.

A counting story that goes wrong when one hungry little T-Rex can’t help himself from gobbling up the other dinosaurs!

Let’s count dinosaurs! Rex the T-Rex is 1. Add Patty the Diplodocus, that’s 2. And here’s comes Brian the Anklyosaurus to make 3. But wait, where’s Brian gone? Rex? Rex! You didn’t EAT him, did you? Oh NAUGHTY Rex! The truth is, you just CAN’T count on dinosaurs.

In this counting book with a difference, Philip Ardagh and Elissa Elwick bring prehistoric chaos and trouble-making dinosaurs to every page for a truly fun, interactive way to learn how to count to 10.

Sometimes we have trouble getting Erin to sit down to do something educational, especially at the minute. She knows the difference between sitting to do some ‘school’ work while she’s off nursery and fun things like crafting. So, we always look for new ways to help her learn and that’s why this book is great.

The beginning of the book has a page where there are lots of pictures of all different kinds of dinosaurs, ones that your child is about to discover in the book. There are the dinosaurs real names and the names they use throughout the story. Calling them names such as Rex, Steggy and Argy is much easier for children than saying their real dinosaur names.

As the book goes on we meet more and more dinosaurs with the focus of the book being on how many there are. Sometimes there is only 1 added at a time, with a new name to learn but sometimes they are taken away too and Erin found this bit hilarious. She had no problem counting along with the story and I don’t even think that she realised she was learning at the same time!