Hello Numbers! What Can You Do?, is rhyming, math fun

Young children are smart. At their core they want to learn, it’s just up to the older people who are taking care of them to get fun, educational materials in their way. For the sake of this review, young children is referring to those kids who are between two and six. These are the crawlers and first-grade kids who have nothing better to do than learn, so hop to it parents. That is where Hello Numbers! What Can You Do? An Adventure Beyond Counting can hardwire these kids for math brilliance, with a little assistance.

Hello Numbers! What Can You Do? certainly has inspiration from Dr. Suess. Initially, when I read this book I thought it was too long for kids to handle in one sitting. It was then I remembered how long most of the great Dr. Suess books were. They, along with this, will take just over ten minutes to read at a normal pace. If you’re reading a good-night book to the ages that this book is intended for then that range is right on par for them.

The book has the go-to simple graphic illustrations that will keep those ages glued to the pages. Readers are introduced to a series of dots as the numbers get higher. This is not a counting book. If you’re looking for a basic introduction to counting or numbers this isn’t your stop. Hello Numbers! What Can You Do? is more of a book about what numbers can do. Ideally, young readers who discover this book will already know how to count and be primed to be made aware of what numbers can accomplish.   

For example, one is just one. It’s a round dot that’s happily doing things by themselves near the number one. However, when the number two shows up it’s a whole new game. They have a pair, an even set of numbers, symmetry is introduced and all that they’re waiting for is a third. When the number three shows up we’re shown angles and triangles of all different sizes. The number four comes along and we meet rhombuses, trapezoids, boomerangs, and pyramids.

The text in Hello Numbers! is engaging and fun to read. Sure it looks intimidating as a good-night book, but read the text and it’s got a flow that builds up a rhythm as you read that makes you not want to stop reading. This is a smart early book for toddlers and early-elementary readers that is as fun as you make it. Granted, the same could be said for any book along these lines that depends on text that rhymes. Here, the text is just as fun, the drawings as happy, engaging, and continue to bring in those young kids. When presented with the same enthusiasm as a rhyming book about long-necked creatures in multi-colored worlds it will be just as enjoyable to its audience. There’s nothing wrong with polka-dotted rhyming creatures. I love them. I also love math and would love for kids to grow up knowing that it’s fun, full of adventure, and can shape their world. Hello Numbers! What Can You Do, An Adventure Beyond Counting is the early childhood book that can do that if parents allow it.

Hello Numbers! What Can you Do? An Adventure beyond Counting is by Edmund Harriss and Houston Hughes, with illustrations by Brian Rea on The Experiment Publishing.

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