Five in the bed and the little one said...

This is a larger-than-usual board book, a nice size for holding with a cosy little group of toddlers round you. It's a comfy sort of book, with up-to-the-minute photos of its subjects, five cuddly toys. The song is the one we know, reduced to five, and as the pages turn we see one after the other cuddly rolling off the bed. A column on each left hand page shows the cumulative falling toys, until only the little one is in the bed and the other four are spiralling downward. This cleverly gives us the chance to count those left in the bed and those falling. There is no text other than the words of the song, and no numbers, which is nice. The discussion of the pictures and the counting is left to the adult. There are well observed details: the soft toys are posed in each photo to react to each other, and they snuggle and cuddle well. And they all end up back in bed.