What's the Time, Mr Wolf?

Review also includes:

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, **, Geraldine Taylor and Jillian Harker, ill. Nick Sharratt, 978-1409304715

There are lots of counting books for infants and toddlers. In order to stand above the rest, a book must be unique in some way. However, rather than innovate, these two titles combine a number of approaches in a piecemeal way. Both books have touchy feely elements but instead of using them to embellish a key feature of a scene, an irrelevant object, like a ball or a cushion, is textured – my two-year-old didn’t even notice them. Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star must win an award for being a nursery rhyme collection that fails to include the title rhyme – otherwise the counting element is well incorporated by the choice of rhymes. What’s the Time, Mr Wolf? is a confusing hybrid in which opposing storylines conflict.