So Many Babies

This is a story told in rhyme about the familiar nursery tale figure, the old woman who lived in a shoe, but in this variant she has a surplus of rooms and no children. She’s a badger, and she wants babies to look after. She sits in her rocking chair, knitting at her feet: we are in nostalgia land. The first baby she acquires is a ginger tom cat. The number 1 indicates that this is a counting book, and there are lots of single items to count on the page: a grandfather clock, a boiled egg, a curly umbrella… The second baby is a mouse, and the scenario sewing, with two of everything to count (but you have to search for them). Three is a bear and a picnic, four a pig and the seaside. By six we’re getting busy with a fox and a rabbit and cake making. Ten is mayhem, then we jump to 20, and double it to 40. There’s lots to look at and count, but goodness knows what children make of this never-never land where pigs wear petticoats.