Number Rhymes: Tens and Teens

Long attested staples such as ‘One, two, buckle my shoe’ and ‘Ten in a bed’ feature in this collection of number rhymes along with some less well-known rhymes such as ‘Mosquito one, Mosquito two, Mosquito jump in the old man shoe’ (from the Caribbean). A couple of the rhymes included are more widely known in slightly different versions, for instance: ‘Twelve fat sausages’ and ‘20 green bottles’ providing practice in counting down in twos rather than in ones. It’s a pleasant enough collection with colourful and quirky illustrations. However, headings are inconsistent in that some are obvious titles of the rhymes, for example, ‘Five little monkeys’ – yet the ‘Ten in the Bed’ rhyme is titled ‘In bed’ and ‘Twelve fat sausages’ is headed ‘In the kitchen’. This would be fine except that it is not typographically clear on some double page spreads whether the text is one long rhyme or a number of different rhymes.