10 Little Hermit Crabs

PreS—This rhyming book starts with a brief paragraph about hermit crabs and then counts down from 10 to one. Each page begins with a number and the words "little hermit crabs." Next, something happens to decrease the number by one and the text moves to the refrain: "'Hush,' says the seashore. 'Shh,' says the sea./How many hermit crabs will there be?" Once down to one, the other nine reappear, and the last page reads, "10 little hermit crabs waving at me." The text works well enough, although at times the meter strains and the refrain is a bit of a tongue twister. The computer-generated art is bold and appealing, with full-bleeds on every page, and the hermit crabs sport googly eyes on stalks and expressive mouths. Unfortunately, on a few spreads one of the crabs is obscured to the point where it is difficult to count, and several of the creatures disappear in what seem likely to be fatal ways, e.g., "down swoops a seagull," and "one meets a shark." Also, there are two wordless spreads interspersed in the book. While the dolphin one is quite lovely, it feels extraneous, and the shark in the other is downright frightening. Nevertheless, the cartoon art will likely appeal to today's computer- and TV-oriented kids, and the addition of information about hermit crabs will make this useful in coastal areas. An additional purchase for libraries looking for more counting or seashore books.—Amy Lilien-Harper, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT