Ten on the Sled - Hardcover

Kim Norman has been a singer, songwriter, artist and comedic actress. She lives in Smithfield, Virginia. Learn more about her at www.kimnormanbooks.com. Liza Woodruff has illustrated 14 books and in addition, she illustrates school textbooks, magazines and posters. Liza lives in Vermont with her husband Tom and their two children. Learn more about her at www.lizawoodruff.com.

PreS-Gr 1–In this counting book, a caribou and his Arctic friends pull a toboggan uphill; with 10 aboard, they speed down the mountain. One by one, they fall off the sled: “Seal spilled out,” “hare hopped out,” “sheep shot out,” and so on. While squirrel, who is wearing a skull-and-crossbones hat, squeezes out of polar bear's paws onto a pine-tree branch and almost gets struck by a zooming pinecone. All those wipeouts create a big snowball made of the various animals, and the race is on. Will it be the snowball or the sled that reaches the bottom first? Part of the fun of sledding is to trudge back up the hill to do it again, and that is what happens. The comic-style illustrations in watercolor have hints of pastel and colored pencil, especially in the sky, which gives the landscape a winter warmth while the characters themselves exhibit a playful, cheery spirit. Colored typeface for each number from ten to one adds to the page design, and alliteration plays a part in the rhyming pattern. A light read for libraries with a high demand for winter-themed books.–Sara Lissa Paulson, American Sign Language and English Lower School PS 347, New York City. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.